CAUSES  THAT  LED 
TO  THE 

War  Between  the  States 

BY 

J.  O.  McGEHEE 

*    I 

Fifty-third  Virginia   Kegiment 
Armistead's  Brigade 

Picket's  Division 

Longstreet's  Corps 

Army  Northern  Virginia 


1915 

A.  B   CALDWELL  PUBLISHING  CO. 
ATLANTA,  GA. 


COPYRIGHT 
3.     CAL.DWELL. 
1916 


DEDICATION 


To  the  United  Daughters  of  the  Confederacy, 
whose  older  members  can  testify  out  of  their  own 
faithful  and  loving  memories  and  heroic  experi 
ences,  to  the  real  facts  of  history  herein  contained, 
this  little  book  is  affectionately  dedicated  in  the 
hope  and  belief  that  the  Truth,  pure  and  undefiled, 
will  be,  by  them,  forever  preserved  and  handed 
down,  unshorn  and  unperverted,  to  all  the  gener 
ations  of  our  sons  and  daughters  yet  unborn. 

THE  AUTHOR. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 
Root  of  Causes  that  Led  to  War. . 


CHAPTER  II 


ERRATA  AND  ADDENDA. 

For  "Good  Speed"  in  16th  line  from  top  of  page  11  read 
Godspeed. 

For  "South"  in  llth  line  from  bottom  of  page  45  read 
North. 

After  the  word  "slavery"  in  8th  line  from  bottom  of 
page  45  read:  But  that  provision  of  the  "Missouri  Com 
promise"  was  automatically  repealed  by  the  passage,  in 
1854,  of  the  "Kansas-Nebraska  Bill"  which  gave  to  the 
people  of  those  territories  the  right  to  decide  for  them 
selves  the  question  of  "slavery"  or  "no  slavery"  whenever 
they  should  organize  state  governments  and  make  applica 
tion  for  admission  as  states  into  the  Union.  When,  under 
those  circumstances,  Kansas  was  thrown  open  to  settle 
ment  it  became  at  once  apparent  that  the  territory  would 
be  occupied  largely  by  Southern  people  moving  into  the 
new  El  Dorado  and  taking  their  slaves  with  them.  The 
abolitionists,  etc. 


CHAPTER  IX 
Lincoln's  Call  for  Troops,  etc 95 

CHAPTER  X 

Conclusion , f 101 


•%,. 


THE  PERRY  PICTURES.        129.    E. 
BOSTON   EDIT'ON. 


COPYRIGHT,  1902,   BY  EUGENE    A.  PERRY, 


ROBERT     E.      LEE. 

1807-1870 


CHAPTER  L 


This  paper,  or  series  of  papers,  originated  in  a 
request,  seconded  by  an  ardent  desire  on  the  part 
of  the  writer,  to  place  in  the  hands  of  the  Daugh 
ters  of  the  Confederacy  in  succinct  and  convenient 
form  the  imperishable  truths  and  incontrovertible 
facts  pertaining  to  the  spirit  and  origin  of  the 
causes  that  led  to  the  war  between  the  States; 
thus  enabling  them  more  fully  to  grasp  and  dis 
seminate  those  truths  among  their  own  member 
ship  and  hand  them  down  unalloyed  and  unper- 
verted  to  future  generations  of  our  sons  and 
daughters. 

The  task,  once  undertaken,  was  found  to  be 
so  wide  in  scope  and  so  comprehensive  in  char 
acter,  both  as  to  time  and  events,  that  it  was  im 
practicable  to  handle  it  properly  and  satisfactorily 
within  the  prescribed  limits  of  a  single  paper  and, 
hence,  the  treatise  has,  perforce,  grown  and 
amplified  into  its  present  form  and  dimensions. 
No  sadder  and  more  humiliating  spectacle  pre 
sents  itself  to  the  men  and  women  of  "The  Sixties" 
than  to  see  and  hear  their  children  or  children's 
children  deprecating  or  apologizing  for  the  heroic 
course  of  action  followed  by  their  parents  and 
grandparents  during  the  trying  and  eventful  years 
of  those  glorious  but  terrible  times. 

Our  whole  country,  indeed  the  English  speak 
ing  world,  during  the  half  century  that  has 
elapsed  since  the  close  of  that  great  struggle,  has 
been  flooded  with  so-called  Histories  of  what  they 


10  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

choose  to  term  "The  Civil  War."  Most  of  those 
books,  especially  of  those  which  emanated  from 
the  North  in  the  years  immediately  subsequent 
to  the  war,  and  before  Southern  writers  began  to 
revive  and  breathe  freely  after  the  bloody  and 
crushing  defeat  and  overthrow  of  the  great  cause 
for  which  they  fought,  were  written  from  a  bit 
terly  partizan  standpoint.  During  the  horrible 
nightmare  of  "Reconstruction"  many  of  those 
books  invaded  or  crept  into  our  public  and  private 
schools,  breathing  into  the  ears  of  our  sons  and 
daughters  the  insidious  poison  of  the  fanatical 
hate  and  murderous  passions  that  prepared  the 
way  and  finally  precipitated  the  awful  strife  that 
deluged  the  country  with  blood,  teaching,  or  seek 
ing  to  teach,  them  to  regard  their  fathers  and 
mothers  as  rebels  and  traitors.  Now  that  such 
perfidious  agents  and  such  pernicious  teaching 
have  been  happily  expelled  from  our  schools  and 
eliminated  from  our  educational  system,  it  is 
vitally  necessary  that  our  boys  and  girls  should 
be  calmly  and  dispassionately  instructed  as  to  the 
real  and  true  causes  that  led  up  to  and  forced  an 
unjust  and  cruel  war  upon  the  South,  and  with 
that  end  in  view  this  short  and  very  incomplete 
paper  has  been  prepared  with  the  hope  that  it 
may  inspire  and  lead  others  to  give  a  more  full 
and  exhaustive  treatment  to  a  subject  that  is  here 
in  but  barely  broached.  What,  then,  were  the  true 
causes  that  led  up  to  and  finally  precipitated  that 
momentous  and  ruinous  struggle;  who  were  the 
real  authors  of  it,  and  what  were  its  objects  and 
purposes? 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      11 

To  seek  the  source  and  understand  the  animus 
of  those  causes  will  carry  us  back  to  the  very  be 
ginning  of  our  country's  history.  Indeed,  to  reach 
the  root  of  the  incipient  enmity  and  jealousy  and 
final  estrangement  that  culminated  in  the  rending 
asunder  of  the  sections  we  must  cross  the  Atlantic 
and  study  the  widely  dissimilar  character  and 
sentiment,  religious,  political  and  social,  of  the 
separate  and  distinct  classes  of  people,  who,  in 
emigrating  to  America,  divided  themselves  be 
tween  the  New  England  and  the  Southern  States. 
The  germs  of  discord  and  dissolution  sported  in 
the  antagonistic  blood  that  warmed  the  hostile 
veins  of  Roundhead  and  Cavalier  and  lurked 
among  the  timbers  of  the  "May  Flower"  and  the 
"Good  Speed."  JoP^^ 

New  England  was  a  community  founded  to  be 
the  home  of  a  creed  with  its  discipline,  and  for  a 
century  after  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  re 
mained  a  frontier  settlement  closed  in  and  hedged 
about  by  primeval  forests  infested  by  roving 
bands  of  prowling  savages.  Having  no  contact, 
therefore,  no  intercourse  with  the  other  colonies 
and  actuated  by  a  single  standard  of  conduct,  she 
became  "one  community  from  end  to  end  and  her 
people  one  people,"1  standing  apart  and  com 
pact,  soberly  cultivating  a  life  and  character  all 
her  own.  Col.  William  Byrd,  of  Westover,  in  his 
quaint  descriptive  writing  says  of  her :  "Though 
these  people  may  be  ridiculed  for  some  of  the 
Pharisaical  particularities  of  their  worship  and 

JGeorge  Washington,  Woodrow  Wilson,  page  12. 


12  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

behavior,  yet  they  are  very  useful  subjects  as  be 
ing  frugal  and  industrious,  giving  no  scandal  or 
bad  example."2 

The  great  body  of  the  people  who  emigrated  to 
Virginia  in  the  first  seventy  years  of  the  colony's 
existence  "had  left  England  as  much  because  they 
hated  the  Puritans  as  because  they  desired  Vir 
ginia.  They  were  drawn  out  of  that  great  ma 
jority  at  home  to  whom  Cromwell  had  not  dared 
resort  to  get  a  new  Parliament  in  place  of  the  one 
he  had  'purged',  and  many  of  them  were  of  the 
hottest  blood  of  the  Cavaliers."1  From  such  a 
source  Virginia  got  her  character  and  received 
the  blood  from  which  was  to  spring  her  future 
race  of  gentlemen  and  statesmen,  eminent  church 
men,  profound  lawyers,  polemic  orators  and  dash 
ing  soldiers  of  valor  unsurpassed  in  any  age  or 
country.  The  tidewater  counties  of  the  Old  Do 
minion  thus  peopled  were  backed  and  buttressed 
by  that  life — and  character-giving  tide  of  sturdy 
and  matchless  Scotch-Irish  yeomanry  which 
spread  itself  along  the  Eastern  slope  of  the  Ap 
palachian  range  of  Virginia  and  North  Carolina 
and  surged  over  into  the  fertile  and  teeming  val 
leys  beyond  the  Blue  Ridge.  Alexander  Spots- 
wood,  who  had  seen  service  under  Marlborough 
and  with  "our  army  in  Flanders;"  had  traveled 
much  through  the  then  known  world  on  embassies 
and  other  important  errands,  having  dealings 
with  all  manner  of  peoples,  at  last  finding  him 
self  in  Virginia,  where  he  was  sent  by  the  home 

1George  Washington,   Woodrow   Wilson,  page   13. 
2History   of  the  Dividing  Line,   Wm.   Byrd,  page  4. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      13 

government  as  Colonial  Governor  of  the  Old  Do 
minion,  said  of  these  people  that  he  found  among 
them  "less  swearing,  less  profaneness,  less  drunk 
enness  and  debauchery,  less  uncharitable  feuds 
and  animosity,  and  less  knavery  and  villainy  than 
in  any  part  of  the  world"  he  had  ever  been.2 

None  will  pretend  that  all  who  came  to  Vir 
ginia  to  seek  their  fortune  or  better  their  con 
dition  in  this  land  of  promise  were  gentlemen  in 
the  English  acceptation  of  the  term,  and  few 
could  afford  to  send  their  sons  to  England  to  be 
educated,  but  "there  were,  at  least,  the  traditions 
of  culture  in  the  colony  and  enough  men  of  educa 
tion  and  refinement  to  leaven  the  mass;"  strong, 
thinking,  highbred  men  who  showed  a  mastery  and 
leadership  in  all  that  tends  to  make  a  people  good 
and  great  were  found  on  all  the  great  plantations 
that  lined  the  rivers  and  streams  and  inlets  of 
tidewater;  and  as  Virginia  rose  from  the  condi 
tion  of  a  mere  colony  to  that  of  a  sturdy  common 
wealth  she  "could  boast  her  own  breed  of  gentle 
men,  merchants,  scholars  and  statesmen." 

The  widely  differing  political  views  and  opin- 
ions  held  by  the  leading  men  of  the  North  and 
South  began  to  show  their  legitimate  fruits  in 
feelings  and  acts  of  enmity,  hostility  and 
estrangement  almost  immediately  after  the  for 
mation  of  the  Union.  This  difference  may  be  best 
understood  by  reviewing  the  political  sentiments  </" 
and  doctrines  entertained  by  Alexander  Hamilton 
and  Thomas  Jefferson,  the  idols,  respectively,  of 
the  New  England  or  Monarchical  party,  and  of 
the  Southern,  or  Democratic,  party. 

2Qfficial  Letters  of  Alexander  Spotswood,  page  28. 


14  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

Hamilton  was  a  monarchist  pure  and  simple, 
desiring  and  laboring  to  establish  in  this  country 
a  government  that  should  be  in  everything,  ex 
cept  its  name,  a  kingdom  instead  of  a  republic. 

Luther  Martin  said  of  Hamilton  and  his  fol 
lowers:  "It  was  a  party  whose  object  and  wish 
was  to  abolish  and  annihilate  all  the  State  Gov 
ernments  and  bring  forward  one  general  govern 
ment  over  all  this  extended  continent  of  a  Mon 
archical  nature." 

Throughout  the  writings  of  Jefferson  we  find 
frequent  allusions  to  and  consideration  of  the 
Monarchical  views  held  and  disseminated  by 
Hamilton.  He  and  Hamilton  were  in  Washing 
ton's  Cabinet  together,  and  thirty  years  after 
wards,  while  calmly  reviewing  the  many  stirring 
and  often  exciting  incidents  of  debate  and  clash 
ing  of  opinions  and  principles  around  the  Council 
Table,  he  tells  us:  "Hamilton  was  not  only  a 
Monarchist,  but  for  a  Monarchy  bottomed  on  cor 
ruption."  And  Hamilton,  himself,  declared:  "I 
have  no  objection  to  a  trial  of  this  thing  called  a 
republic,  but  for  my  part  I  avow  myself  a  Mon 
archist/'  And  in  August,  1791,  three  years  after 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  under  which  we 
are  now  living,  Hamilton,  in  conversation  with 
Mr.  Jefferson,  declared :  "I  own  it  is  my  opinion 
that  the  present  Government  is  not  that  which 
will  answer,  and  that  it  will  be  found  expedient 
to  go  into  the  British  form."  In  other  and  plainer 
words,  to  become  a  Monarchy. 

Washington,  who  had  previously  been  in  sym 
pathy  and  affiliation  with  the  Federalist  party, 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES       15 

as  the  followers  of  Hamilton  were  called,  shared 
the  alarm  of  his  Cabinet  and  the  friends  of  his 
Administration  caused  by  such  treasonable  senti 
ments  and  utterances  of  his  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  and,  in  July.  1792.  wrote  to  Hamilton 
asking*  for  an  explanation  of  those  rumors  with 
which  the  country  was  filled.  Washington,  like 
Jefferson,  was  a  Virginian,  and  had  no  sympathy 
with  the  Monarchical  principles  of  Hamilton  and 
his  followers,  as  is  plainly  shown  when  he  says, 
after  his  correspondence  with  his  Secretary. 
"Those  who  lean  to  a  Monarchical  Government 
have  either  not  consulted  the  public  mind,  or  they 
live  in  a  region  which  is  more  productive  of  Mon 
archical  ideas  than  is  the  case  in  the  Southern 
States."  Thus,  it  is  seen  that  as  early  as  1790 
there  existed  great  difference  and  antagonism  be- 
~  tween  the  Statesmen  of  the  North,  and  South  on 
th^  subject  of  government;  and  if  we  go  back 
still  farther  we  find  those  same  parties  and  prin 
ciples  pitted  against  each  other  in  the  Conven 
tion  that  formed  the  Constitution.  There  we  see 
the  JpfFersonian  and  Hamiltom'an  parties  sharply 
and  clearly  aligned  aganist  each  other;  the  one 
in  favor  of  a  government  bv  the  people  with 
powers  cautiously  limited  and  clearly  defined  in 
the  Constitution ;  the  other  in  favor  of  what  they 
called,  and  what  their  successors,  the  Republican 
party  of  today,  still  call  "a  strong  Government" 
with  all  the  arbitrary  powers  of  a  Monarchy  with 
out  its  name.  "The  Jeffersonian  idea  was  that 
f*>e  people  are  the  masters  of  the  Government. 
The  Hamiltonian  idea  was  that  the  Government  is  x 


16  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

the  Master  of  the  people."  The  struggle  between 
the  friends  and  supporters  of  these  opposing  and 
conflicting  ideas  was  earnest  and  obstinate,  caus 
ing  long  and  sometimes  bitter  debates  which  called 
out  all  the  fiery  eloquence  for  which  the  Consti 
tutional  Convention  was  noted.  In  the  end  the 
Jeffersonian  Party  prevailed  and  gave  to  the 
country  a  Democratic  Constitution. 

Hamilton  expressed  his  bitter  disappointment 
in  a  letter  to  Morris  in  1802  in  which  he  said: 
"No  man  has  plone  more  to  uphold  the  present 
Constitution  than  myself,  and  I  am  still  laboring 
to  prop  the  frail  and  worthless  fabric ;  yet,  I  have 
nothing  but  the  murmurs  of  its  friends  and  the 
curses  of  its  foes  for  my  reward.  Every  day 
proves  to  me  more  and  more  that  this  American 
world  was  not  made  for  me,  and  what  better  can 
I  do  than  withdraw  from  the  scene."  If  he  had 
withdrawn  before  he  inculcated  his  baleful  doc 
trines  and  formed  his  party  of  destruction,  history 
would  not  have  had  to  record  three-quarters  of  a 
century  later  the  sad  spectacle  of  a  country  torn 
asunder  by  fratricidal  strife,  and  that  section  of  it 
which  always  plead  for  peace  deluged  with  blood 
and  overwhelmed  with  desolation. 

The  Hamiltonian  or  Federalist  Party  embraced, 
as  the  Republican  Party  of  today  has  always  done, 
a  vast  majority  of  the  men  of  wealth  and  high 
social  position  in  the  North.  General  Washing 
ton  served  the  country  eight  years  as  President, 
and  his  over-shadowing  popularity  with  his  well- 
known  and  undoubted  Southern  sentiments  over 
ruled  and  held  down  everything  like  the  ambition 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES       17 

of  cliques  and  sectional  bitterness.  But  as  soon 
as  his  presidency  was  at  an  end,  and  his  succes 
sor  had  to  be  chosen  the  Federalists,  the  sworn 
enemies  of  Democratic  principles  of  government 
and  Jeffersonian  simplicity  of  public  administra 
tion,  again  showed  the  cloven  foot  of  their  Mon 
archical,  or  "strong  government"  ideas,  and  near 
ly  every  safeguard  which  the  Constitution  throws 
around  the  liberties  of  the  people  was  threatened 
or  overthrown.  Then  it  was  that  the  slumbering 
antagonism  between  the  political  principles  of  the 
leading  statesmen  of  the  North  and  South  began 
to  assume  a  well-defined  shape  in  the  division  of 
parties. 

John  Adams,  of  Massachusetts  was  an  original 
Democrat,  and  his  great  and  valuable  services  to 
the  country  during  the  Revolution  are  well-known 
and  acknowledged.  President  Washington  had 
sent  him  as  Minister  to  England,  and  his  residence 
there  had  completely  dazzled  and  fascinated  him 
with  the  pomp  and  glare  and  glitter  of  Royalty 
and  Nobility,  and  he  conceived  those  attributes  of 
Monarchy  to  be  a  necessary  ingredient  of  Gov 
ernment.  He  was  taken  up  and  flattered  and 
cajoled  by  the  Federalists  in  his  absence  and,  on 
his  return  to  the  United  States,  was  made  their 
candidate  for  President ;  just  as,  in  our  own  day, 
General  Grant,  who  had  been  a  lifelong  Democrat 
and  a  slaveholder,  was  seduced  to  follow  the  loaves 
and  fishes  of  Federal  patronage  and,  deserting  his 
real  political  principles,  bowed  down  to  the  god 
of  pomp  and  power  and  emolument,  whose  shrine 
is  public  office. 


18  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

Under  the  Adams  Administration  the  most 
.foolish  and  oppressive  laws  were  enacted  by  the 
'Federalist  majority  in  Congress.  Among  those 
'acts  were  the  famous,  or  rather  infamous  "Alien 
and  Sedition  Laws"  which  gave  the  President 
power  to  banish  all  aliens  from  the  United  States, 
or  lock  them  up  in  prison  during  his  pleasure,  am1 
to  cause  the  arrest  and  imprisonment  of  any  per 
son  who  should  dare  to  write  or  speak  anything 
against  the  President  or  Congress,  thus  putting 
in  the  President's  hands  as  arbitrary  and  despotic 
power  as  was  ever  wielded  by  the  "Czar  of  all  the 
Russias." 

Under  the  exercise  of  such  shameful  and  des 
potic  authority,  which  jeopardized  the  liberty  of 
every  citizen  of  the  United  States,  the  Honorable 
Matthew  Lyon,  a  Democrat  and  public-spirited 
citizen,  for  daring  to  criticize  "the  ridiculous  and 
idle  parade"  of  the  President,  was  seized  and 
thrust  into  a  cold  dungeon  six  feet  square  to  starve 
and  freeze  during  one  whole  winter,  and  was 
liberated  only  on  the  payment  of  a  fiine  of  one 
thousand  dollars.  As  another  specimen  of  the 
exercise  of  this  kingly  power  which  ran  riot  in 
cruelty  and  mob  violence,  General  Sumter,  an  aged 
veteran  and  one  of  the  most  distinguished  patriots 
of  the  country,  was  knocked  down  and  brutally 
beaten  by  an  officer  of  the  Administration  at  a 
theater  in  Philadelphia  because  he  neglected  to 
take  off  his  hat  when  it  was  announced  that  the 
President  was  coming  in.1  As  expressive  of  the 
monarchical  spirit  of  the  Party  in  power,  an  ad- 

iWritings  of  John  Wood,  historian  of  the  times. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      19 

dress  to  the  President  dated  May  1st,  1798,  de 
clared:  "We,  the  subscribers,  inhabitants  and 
citizens  of  Boston,  beg  leave  to  express  to  you,  the 
Chief  Magistrate  and  Supreme  Ruler  of  the  United 
States,  our  fullest  approbation  of  all  the  measures 
you  have  been  pleased  to  adopt  under  direction  of 
Divine  Authority."  Surely  that  was  the  doctrine 
of  the  Divine  Right  of  Kings  unadulterated! 

The  defeat  and  overthrow  of  the  despotic  and 
unconstitutional  regime  of  the  Federalist  Party 
was  accomplished  by  the  wisdom  and  patriotism 
of  the  United  South  under  the  leadership  of  Jef 
ferson  and   Madison.     Those  pure  patriots  and 
incorruptible  statesmen  drew  up  the  famous  "VIr-  / 
ginia  and  Kentucky  Resolutions  of  1798,"  which  I 
were  adopted  by  the  Legislatures  of  Virginia  and  - 
Kentucky  and  accepted  by  the  entire  South  with 
the  same  unanimity  with  which  they  were  con 
demned  and  rejected  by  the  North. 

These  Resolutions  "pointedly  condemn  all  the 
despotic  and  revolutionary  acts  of  the  Adams  Ad-  •  •• 
ministration  as  subversive  of  the  free  Govern 
ment  of  the  United  States,  and  clearly  set  forth 
all  the  powers  of  the  Federal  Government  as  re 
sulting  from  a  compact  or  agreement  between 
sovereign  and  independent  States,  each  State  pos 
sessing  'an  equal  right  to  decide  for  itself  as  well 
of  infractions  as  of  the  mode  and  manner  of  re 
dress/  ' 

The  Federalists,  thus  attacked  in  their  strong 
hold,  raised  a  wild  cry  of  alarm  and  desperation, 
but  the  friends  of  Democracy  everywhere,  North 
as  well  as  South,  adopted  the  resolutions  as  their 


20  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

written  creed  of  political  faith,  and  on  that  plat 
form  Jefferson  was  elected  President  and  the  Fed 
eralists  were  hurled  from  power.  The  wildest 
excesses  of  violent  language  and  actions  marked 
the  downfall  of  the  defeated  Federalists.  Jeffer 
son  was  denounced  as  "an  infidel,"  "a  Jacobin,"  "a 
traitor"  and  "a  scoundrel."  These  vile  epithets 
were  hurled  at  the  head  of  the  author  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  from  pulpits,  ros 
trums  and  legislative  halls  all  over  the  North,  and 
from  the  Editorial  rooms  of  every  Federalist 
newspaper  in  the  country. 

.The  hatred  of  Jefferson  and  all  the  leading 
statesmen  of  the  South  did  not  die  with  that  gen 
eration,  but  parents  taught  their  children  to  hate, 
not  only  the  leaders,  but  the  whole  Southern  peo 
ple,  thus  sowing  the  seeds  of  that  "irrepressible 
conflict"  which  should,  in  the  coming  years,  either 
destroy  the  Union,  which  they  hated,  or  crush  the 
South  under  a  deluge  of  murder  and  rapine. 

Thus  defeated  in  their  purpose  to  lead  or  drive 
the  people  into  a  form  of  government  administered 
on  Monarchical  principles,  and  ignominiously 
driven  from  power  by  the  election  of  Jefferson, 
the  Federalist  leaders  set  to  work  with  renewed 
determination  and  envenomed  hate  to  excite  the 
resentment  and  inflame  the  passions  of  their  fol 
lowers  to  such  a  pitch  of  fanaticism  as  would 
enable  them  to  disrupt  the  Union  and  destroy  the 
Constitution,  both  of  which  they  had  always  hated 
and  reviled.  Abundant  historical  and  irrefutable 
proof  of  this  fact  could  be  compiled  from  many 
sources,  but  the  limits  of  this  paper  will  not  ad- 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      21 

mit  such  voluminous  records.  In  a  letter  dated 
in  1796  Mr.  Jefferson  says:  "The  Alien  and 
Sedition  Laws  are  working  hard.  For  my  own 
part  I  consider  the  laws  merely  as  an  experiment 
on  the  American  mind  to  see  how  far  it  will  bear 
an  avowed  violation  of  the  Constitution.  If  this 
goes  down  we  shall  immediately  see  another  act 
of  Congress  declaring  that  the  President  shall 
continue  in  office  during  life,  reserving  to  another 
occasion  the  transfer  of  the  succession  to  his  heirs 
and  the  establishment  of  a  Senate  for  life."  In  a 
letter  to  Samuel  Ringgold,  written  from  Ports 
mouth,  New  Hampshire,  in  1800,  John  Langdon 
says:  "In  a  conversation  between  Mr.  Adams, 
Mr.  Taylor  and  myself,  Mr.  Adams  certainly  ex 
pressed  a  hope  or  expectation  that  his  friend, 
Giles,  would  see  the  day  when  he  would  be  con 
vinced  that  the  people  of  America  would  not  be 
happy  without  an  hereditary  Chief  Magistrate 
and  Senate,  or,  at  least,  for  life."  In  another 
letter  Jefferson  says:  "A  weighty  minority  of 
the  Federalist  leaders,  considering  a  voluntary 
conversion  into  a  Monarchy  as  too  distant,  if  not 
too  desperate,  wish  to  break  off  from  our  Union 
its  eastern  fragment,  as  being  in  fact  the  hotbed 
of  American  Monarchism,  with  a  view  to  the  com 
mencement  of  their  favorite  government,  from 
which  other  States  may  gangrene  by  degrees  and 
the  whole,  thus  by  degrees  be  brought  to  the  de 
sired  point." 

Matthew  Gary,  an  eminent  author  in  his  day, 
compiles  a  volume  of  facts  in  his  great  work,  "The 
Olive  Branch,"  showing  a  conspiracy  in  New  Eng- 


22  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

land  to  break  up  the  Union  as  early  as  1796.  The 
following  extract  is  a  sample  of  the  well  attested 
facts  he  there  records: 

"A  Northern  Confederacy  has  been  their  object 
for  a  number  of  years.  They  have  repeatedly  ad 
vocated  in  the  public  prints  a  separation  of  the 
States  on  account  of  pretended  discordant  views 
and  interests  of  the  different  sections.  This 
project  of  separation  was  formed  shortly  after  the 
adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution.  Whether  it 
was  ventured  before  the  public  earlier  than  1796 
I  know  not,  but  of  its  promulgation  that  year 
there  is  most  indubitable  evidence.  To  sow  dis 
cord,  jealousy  and  hostility  between  different  sec 
tions  of  the  Union  was  the  first  grand  step  in 
their  career  in  order  to  accomplish  the  favorite 
object  of  a  separation  of  the  States.  For  eighteen 
years,  therefore,  from  1796  to  1814,  the  most  un 
ceasing  endeavors  have  been  used  to  poison  the 
minds  of  the  people  of  the  Eastern  States  towards, 
and  to  alienate  them  from  their  fellow  citizens  of 
the  Southern  States.  Nothing  can  exceed  the 
violence  of  these  caricatures,  some  of  which 
would  have  suited  the  ferocious  inhabitants  of 
New  Zealand  rather  than  a  civilized  and  polished 
nation."1 

In  that  same  year  of  1796  there  were  published 
in  Hartford,  Connecticut,  a  series  of  papers  over 
the  signature  of  "Pelham"  which,  Gary  tells  us, 
"were  the  joint  production  of  men  of  the  finest 
talent  in  New  England."  This  extract  from  the 
first  number  of  those  papers  will  amply  show  that 

!The  Olive  Branch,  Matthew  Cary,  Library  of  Congress. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      23 

they  were  launched  for  the  sole  and  undisguised 
purpose  of  destroying  the  Union,  of  which  unpar 
donable  sin  the  South  was  afterwards,  and  is  still, 
so  bitterly  accused  and  reviled,  by  the  children 
and  descendants  of  those  same  people: 

"The  Northern  States  can  exist  as  a  nation 
without  any  connection  with  the  Southern.  It 
cannot  be  contested  that  if  the  Southern  States 
were  possessed  of  the  same  political  ideas,  our 
Union  would  be  more  close,  but  when  it  becomes 
a  serious  question  whether  we  must  give  up  our 
government  or  part  with  the  States  south  of  the 
Potomac  no  man  north  of  that  river  whose  heart 
is  not  thoroughly  Democratic  can  hesitate  what 
decision  to  make."  And  this  was  written  in  1796. 

It  shows  the  fealty  of  the  South  to  Democratic 
principles  of  government,  and  her  love  and  vener 
ation  for  the  Constitution  was  the  cause  of  all 
the  cunning  hatred  and  abuse  heaped  upon  her 
by  the  Federalist  Monarchy  loving  leaders  of  New 
England.  They  deliberately  plotted  and  planned 
to  overthrow  and  destroy  the  Union,  which  had 
been  established  by  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu 
tion  only  eight  years  before,  because  the  South 
was  so  thoroughly  Democratic. 

Thus  was  inaugurated  at  that  early  day  an  un 
relenting  political  and  social  war  upon  the  South 
by  the  Federalists  of  the  New  England  States 
which  raged  with  increasing  estrangement  and 
hatred  until  the  threatening  war  cloud  burst  at 
last  upon  the  country  in  a  deluge  of  blood. 


CHAPTER  II. 


During  the  troubled  period  of  nearly  seventy 
years,  from  1796  to  1860,  while  the  muttering 
thunders  of  discord  and  dissolution  were  gather 
ing  increasing  force  and  intensity,  if  all  the  vile 
abuse  and  vituperation  of  the  South  which  was 
published  in  Northern  papers  and  books  were 
gathered  into  one  stupendous  work  it  would  form 
an  encyclopedia  of  a  hundred  folio  volumes. 

But  the  complete  triumph  and  ascendancy  of 
the  Democratic  Party  over  that  pernicious  South 
hating,  Union  reviling  faction  saved  the  country 
from  open  rupture  for  the  long  period  of  over 
sixty  years. 

The  political,  moral  and  social  peace  of  the 
country  was  broken  and  destroyed  by  the  old  Fed 
eralist  Party  nearly  three  quarters  of  a  century 
before  the  Union  was  finally  torn  asunder  as  an 
inevitable  result  of  their  traitorous  teachings  and 
perpetual  wrangling.  But  there  existed  through 
out  the  Northern  States,  both  in  and  out  of  New 
England,  a  weighty  minority  of  patriotic  men 
whose  true  Democratic  principles  could  not  be 
shaken  or  swerved  or  seduced  from  their  loyalty 
and  devotion  to  the  Government  established  by 
the  wisdom  of  the  fathers  and  cemented  by  the 
blood  of  the  Revolution  and  they,  standing 
squarely  with  the  solid  South  under  the  leader 
ship  of  such  men  as  Jefferson  and  Madison  and 
Monroe  and  Mason  and  a  host  of  others  tried  and 
true,  both  north  and  south  of  the  Potomac,  made 
it  possible  to  protect,  defend  and  preserve  the 


26  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

integrity  of  the  Union  and  the  Constitution  until 
the  fateful  year  of  1860. 

In  1809  a  conspiracy  was  discovered,  between 
the  agents  of  the  British  Government  in  Canada 
and  the  leading  Federalists  of  New  England,  to 
disrupt  the  Union  and  establish  a  Northern  Con 
federacy  in  political  alliance  with  the  Government 
of  England.  Mr.  Madison  was  then  President  and, 
in  a  message  to  Congress,  he  said:  "I  lay  before 
Congress  copies  of  certain  documents  which  re 
main  in  the  Department  of  State.  They  prove 
that,  at  a  recent  period,  on  the  part  of  the  British 
Government,  through  its  public  ministry  here,  a 
secret  agent  of  that  Government  was  employed 
in  certain  States,  more  especially  at  the  seat  of 
Government  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  in 
fomenting  disaffection  to  the  constituted  authori 
ties  of  the  country;  and  intrigued  with  the  dis 
affected  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  about  resist 
ance  to  the  laws;  and  eventually,  in  concert  with 
a  British  force,  of  destroying  the  Union,  and 
forming  the  eastern  part  thereof  into  a  political 
connection  with  Great  Britain."1 

This  astonishing  message  to  Congress  created  a 
great  flutter  and  wild  consternation  among  the 
New  England  Federalists  and  traitors  to  the  Un 
ion.  It  established,  by  unmistakable  and  indis 
putable  proofs,  that  they  had  guiltily  and  traitor 
ously  conspired  with  a  foreign  power  to  disrupt 
and  overthrow  the  Union  because  they  had  failed 
to  subvert  the  Democratic  form  of  Government 
established  by  the  people.  The  British  conspira- 

iMessages  of  the  Presidents. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      27 

tor  who  was  sent  to  inaugurate  and  conduct  this 
shameful  conspiracy  to  overthrow  and  destroy  the 
Government  established  by  the  Fathers  of  the 
country  wrote  back  to  those  who  employed  him 
that  he  found  the  leaders  of  New  England  ripe 
and  ready  for  anything  which  could  be  made  to 
sever  the  Union,  but  that  love  for  the  Union  was 
so  strong  among  the  masses  of  the  people  who 
had  fought  and  suffered  to  establish  it  that  he 
doubted  if  it  could  be  dissolved  at  the  time  and  in 
the  manner  in  which  it  has  been  undertaken ;  and 
suggested  that  the  only  feasible  way  in  which 
disunion  could  be  successfully  accomplished  would 
be  to  start  some  sectional  question  or  dispute  by 
which  the  prejudices  and  passions  of  the  people 
could  be  excited  and  embroiled  to  the  point  of 
physical  strife  and,  thus,  accomplish  the  object  of 
dissolution. 

In  the  war  of  1812  between  the  United  States 
and  England  the  Federalists  of  New  England  sym 
pathized  with  England  as  far  as  they  could  pos 
sibly  go  without  actually  taking  up  arms  against 
the  United  States.  John  Quincy  Adams,  a  Mas 
sachusetts  man  of  the  straightest  sect,  but  one 
who  is  given  credit  for  the  honesty  of  his  utter 
ances,  is  forced  to  declare  that:  "In  the  Eastern 
States  curses  and  anathemas  were  liberally  hurled 
from  the  Pulpits  on  the  heads  of  all  those  who 
sided,  directly  or  indirectly,  in  carrying  on  the 
war."  Caleb  Strong  was  then  Governor  of  Mas 
sachusetts.  The  following  resolution  was  intro 
duced  in  the  Legislature  of  that  State:  "And, 
therefore,  be  it  resolved  that  we  recommend  to 


28  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

his  Excellency,  Caleb  Strong,  to  take  the  revenue 
of  the  State  into  his  own  hands,  arm  and  equip 
the  militia  and  declare  us  independent  of  the 
Union." 

At  the  same  time  Fisher  Ames,  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  leaders  of  political  thought  in  New 
England,  said:  "Our  country  is  too  big  for  Un 
ion,  too  sordid  for  patriotism,  too  Democratic  for 
liberty.  Our  disease  is  Democracy;  it  is  not  the 
skin,  only,  that  festers,  our  very  bones  are  cari 
ous,  and  their  marrow  blackens  with  gangrene." 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Dwight,  a  grandson  of  Jonathan 
Edwards,  President  of  Yale  University  and  ac 
counted  one  of  the  ablest  theologians  of  New 
England,  said :  "The  Declaration  of  Independence 
is  a  wicked  thing.  I  thought  so  when  it  was  pro 
claimed,  and  I  think  so  still." 

One  of  the  leading  papers  of  Boston  declared  as 
the  sentiment  of  the  Party:  "We  never  fought 
for  a  republic.  The  form  of  our  Government  was 
the  result  of  necessity,  not  the  offspring  of 
choice." 

The  Boston  Gazette  threatened  President  Mad 
ison  with  death  if  he  attempted  to  compel  the 
Eastern  States  to  fight  against1  England  at  that 
time. 

And  yet,  in  after  years,  those  same  people,  or 
their  descendants,  raised  a  howl  of  Pharisaical  in 
dignation  and  hurled  an  avalanche  of  abuse  at  Vir 
ginia  because  when  their  idol,  Lincoln,  required 
her  to  "level  her  guns  on  her  Southern  sisters," 
she  refused  and  exercised  her  reserved  and  un- 

1See  files  of  Boston  Gazette  in  Library  of  Congrets. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      29 

questioned  right  to  withdraw  from  the  Union, 
rather  than  violate  the  Constitution  under  which 
we  lived. 

Time  was  now  fully  ripe  for  those  scheming  dis- 
unionists  to  put  in  effect  the  threats,  and  bring  to 
fruition  the  plots  which,  for  twenty  years,  they 
had  been  breathing  and  incubating ;  and  this  orig 
inal  secession  movement  reached  its  culmination 
in  the  famous  Hartford  Convention. 

As  previously  noted,  this  movement  was  first 
set  in  motion  by  the  publication  of  the  Pelham 
Papers  in  the  Hartford  Courant  commencing  in 
1798.1  Moved  by  the  spirit  and  led  by  the  teach 
ings  of  these  publications,  various  acts  and  utter 
ances,  both  by  legislative  enactment  and  the  pop 
ular  voice,  paved  the  way  for  the  assembling  of 
that  body  of  secessionists  at  Hartford.  In  the 
Massachusetts  Legislature  on  June  15,  1813,  Jo- 
siah  Quincy  offered  a  resolution  which  declared 
that  "in  a  war  like  the  present,  waged  withou' 
justifiable  cause  and  prosecuted  in  a  manner 
which  indicates  that  conquest  and  ambition  are 
its  real  motives,  it  is  not  becoming  a  moral  and 
religious  people  to  express  any  approbation  of 
military  or  naval  exploits  which  are  not  immedi 
ately  connected  with  the  defence  of  our  seacoast 
and  soil."  On  February  18,  1814,  a  report  to  the 
Massachusetts  Legislature  declared,  almost  in  the 
exact  language  of  Madison's  Virginia  Resolution 
in  1798,  that,  "Whenever  the  National  Compact  is 
violated  and  the  citizens  of  the  State  oppressed 
by  cruel  and  unauthorized  laws,  the  Legislature 

iScudder's  American  Commonwealths — Connecticut,  pp.  350-52, 


30  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

is  bound  to  interpose  its  power  and  wrest  from 
the  oppressor  its  victim."1  On  October  16,  the 
Legislature  of  Massachusetts  voted  to  raise  a 
million  dollars  to  support  a  State  army  of  ten 
thousand  men  to  protect  her  own  borders  inde 
pendent  of  the  National  Government  and  to  re 
quest  the  New  England  States  to  meet  in  conven 
tion  for  the  furtherance  of  her  scneme  to  estab 
lish  a  government  apart  from,  and  independent  of, 
the  existing  Union. 

Two  days  later,  on  the  18th  day  of  October,  the 
Legislature  in  joint  session,  by  the  overwhelming 
vote  of  226  to  67,  appointed  twelve  delegates  to 
represent  the  State  of  Massachusetts  in  the  seces 
sion  convention.  By  similar  joint  action  the 
Legislature  of  Connecticut  appointed  seven  dele 
gates,  and  the  Legislature  of  Rhode  Island  ap 
pointed  four.  New  Hampshire  sent  two  delegates 
and  Vermont  one,  all  of  whom  were  appointed  by 
Conventions  of  the  people.2 

The  Convention  met  at  Hartford,  Connecticut, 
on  December  15,  1814,  and  remained  in  session 
three  weeks,  adjourning  on  the  5th  of  January, 
1815.  Bishop  Chase,  of  the  Episcopal  Church, 
was  requested  to  open  the  Convention  with  prayer 
but  refused,  saying  he  "knew  no  form  of  prayer 
for  rebellion." 

All  the  deliberations  of  the  Convention  were 
conducted  in  secret  session  behind  closed  doors, 
therefore  contemporary  histories  contain  no  de 
tailed  accounts  of  the  debates  and  deliberative 

!Prof.  Hart,  Epochs  of  American  History,  pp.  216-17. 
ZDwight's  History  of  the  Hartford  Convention. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      31 

actions  of  the  body.  Its  sessions,  however,  were 
closely  watched  by  the  loyal  and  conservative  ele 
ment  on  the  outside  and  at  intervals  a  file  of  sol 
diers  were  marched  around  the  building,  followed 
by  the  usual  gathering  of  boys  and  young  men, 
with  fife  and  drum  in  derision  and  contempt  play 
ing  the  "Rogue's  March." 

Mr.  Jefferson,  in  his  correspondence  wrote  of 
the  Convention  while  in  session,  "It  is  a  disagree 
able  circumstance,  but  not  a  dangerous  one.  If 
they  become  neutral  we  are  sufficient  for  one 
enemy  without  them;  and,  in  fact,  we  get  no  aid 
from  them  now." 

Although  all  its  deliberations  had  been  in 
secret,  the  Convention,  on  adjournment,  adopted 
a  final  and  full  report  which  was  widely  published. 
This  report  submitted  a  long  list  of  proposed 
amendments  to  the  Federal  Constitution  which 
were  so  sweeping  and  radical  in  their  demands 
that  compliance  therewith  would  have  stripped 
the  General  Government  of  practically  all  finan 
cial  and  military  support  and  effected  a  virtual 
dissolution  of  the  Constitution.  Thinly  veiled 
behind  the  whole  report  was  an  implied  deter 
mination  to  withdraw  from  the  Union  unless 
those  demands  were  met  and  complied  with. 
Thus,  the  report  declared  that  the  Constitution 
had  been  violated  and  that  "States  whiclrtrave 
no  common  umpire  must  be  their  own  judges  and 
execute  their  own  decisions."1 

Provision  was  also  made  for  another  Conven- 

1  McDonald's  Select  Documents,  pp.  189-207;  Hart's  Epochs  of 
American  History,  pp.  217-18. 


32  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

tion  to  meet  in  Boston  on  the  second  Thursday 
in  June  following,  to  put  in  effect  the  line  of 
action  marked  out  by  the  Hartford  Convention, 
such  action,  of  course,  to  be  determined  by  the 
disposition  made  of  the  report  by  Congress,  before 
which  body  it  was  to  be  laid. 

The  Legislatures  of  Massachusetts  and  Con 
necticut  appointed  three  Commissioners  to  pro 
ceed  to  Washington  and  lay  this  ultimatum  before 
the  General  Government,  but  before  they  arrived 
at  the  Capital  news  reached  them  that  peace  with 
England  had  been  declared  and  the  report  was 
never  submitted.  I  have  dwelt  thus  upon  these 
purely  historical  facts  and  incidents  for  two  rea 
sons,  first,  to  show  that  up  to  the  time  when  the 
Southern  States  quietly  seceded,  thus  doing  ex 
actly  what  the  New  England  States  had  so  early, 
so  often  and  so  persistently  threatened  to  do,  but 
had  not  the  moral  courage  to  put  into  effect,  no 
party  of  men,  and  no  section  of  the  country  had 
ever  thought  of  denying  or  questioning  the  legal 
and  moral  right  of  the  States  to  withdraw  from 
the  Union  whenever  their  Constitutional  rights 
were  violated  or  disregarded  by  the  general  Gov 
ernment  ;  the  right  of  secession  had,  in  the  superb 
language  of  John  W.  Daniel,  "been  preached  upon 
the  hustings,  enunciated  in  political  platforms, 
proclaimed  in  the  Senate  and  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  embodied  in  our  literature, 
taught  in  schools  and  Colleges,  interwoven  with 
the  texts  of  our  jurisprudence  and  maintained  by 
scholars,  statesmen  and  constituencies  of  all  States 
and  sections  of  the  country,"  the  States,  them- 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES       33 

selves,  to  be  the  Judges  of  when  and  how  those 
rights  were  violated;  and,  secondly,  to  show  and 
impress  upon  our  children,  what  all  the  world 
now  knows,  that  the  New  England  States  were 
the  hotbed  from  which  sprang  the  original  doc 
trine  of  secession,  and  their  soil  the  fruitful  field 
in  which  were  propagated  the  noxious  and  noi 
some  weeds  of  sectional  hatred  and  political  dis 
solution. 

Thus  foiled  and  headed  off,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  their  nefarious  scheming  and  intrigue  to  an 
tagonize  the  sections  and  overthrow  the  Govern 
ment  established  by  Washington  and  Jefferson 
and  Madison,  and  finding  themselves  permanent 
ly  driven  from  power  by  the  Jeffersonian,  or 
Democratic  Party,  the  old  disunion  Party  of  Ham 
ilton  and  Adams,  following  the  suggestion  of  the 
British  conspirator,  Henry,  who  was  exposed  and 
driven  from  the  country  by  President  Madison, 
set  about  to  find  some  sectional  and  social  issue 
on  which  they  could  rally  and  keep  alive  their 
waning  partisan  strength. 

They  settled  upon  Negro  Slavery,  that  "Ilion  of 
all  our  woes."  The  Southern  States,  and  especial 
ly  Virginia,  had  always  opposed  slavery,  and 
struggled  hard  to  resist  and  prevent  its  introduc 
tion  into  the  Colonies.  "Again  and  again,"  ac 
cording  to  the  historian,  Bancroft,  "they  had 
passed  laws  restraining  the  importation  of  slaves 
from  Africa,  but  all  their  laws  were  disallowed"1 
and  set  aside  by  the  ruling  powers,  both  at  home 
and  across  the  sea.  Finally,  in  1772,  the  House  of 

iHistory  United  States,  Bancroft,  Vol.  3,  p.  410. 


34  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

Burgesses  of  Virginia  addressed  a  pathetic  peti 
tion  directly  to  the  King  of  England  imploring 
"Your  Majesty's  paternal  assistance  in  averting  a 
calamity  of  the  most  alarming  nature.  The  im 
portation  of  slaves  from  the  coast  of  Africa  hath 
long  been  considered  as  a  trade  of  great  inhuman 
ity,  and  under  its  present  encouragement  we  have 
too  much  reason  to  fear  will  endanger  the  very 
existence  of  your  Majesty's  American  domin 
ions."2  But  the  King  and  his  Ministers  continued 
to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  all  such  appeals,  and  George 
the  Third  issued  instructions  under  his  own  hand 
commanding  the  Governor  of  the  Colony  "upon 
pain  of  the  highest  displeasure  to  assent  to  no 
laws  by  which  the  importation  of  slaves  should 
be  in  any  respect  prohibited  or  obstructed." 

That  the  wild  rage  of  New  England  fanaticism 
aroused  and  exhibited  by  the  leaders  of  the  old 
disunion  party  in  prosecuting  their  newly  dis 
covered  fad  of  abolitionism  arose  from  any  love 
for,  or  sympathy  with,  the  negro  is  too  shallow 
and  transparent  a  pretense  to  need  serious  refuta 
tion.  Slavery  had  existed  in  every  one  of  the 
Northern  States,  and  the  wealthy  ship  owners  of 
New  England  were  actively  engaged  in  the  in 
famous  but  lucrative  slave  trade,  and  many  of  the 
leaders  of  their  party  had  grown  rich  by  bringing 
negroes  to  our  shores  and  selling  them  to  the 
Southern  planters.  But  the  climate  of  the  North 
ern  States  was  so  cold,  and  the  main  industries 
of  New  England  being  directed  to  manufactures 
and  commerce,  the  savage  and  untutored  negro 

2Journal  of  the  House  of  Burgesses,  p.  131. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      35 

from  the  hot  jungles  of  Africa  was  found  to  be 
unprofitable,  and  after  the  most  salable  and  valu 
able  had  been  run  off  and  sold  to  the  South,  and 
the  money  securely  pocketed,  the  few  remaining 
were  declared  free. 

The  most  convincing  and  damning  proof  of  the 
insincerity  and  hypocrisy  of  New  England's  pre 
tended  love  for  the  negro  and  abhorence  of  slavery 
was  shown  in  the  framing  and  adoption  of  the 
Federal  Constitution  in  1787.  Then  was  the  su 
preme  opportunity  for  the  suppression  of  the 
abominable  slave  trade  thus  paving  the  way  for 
gradual  and  final  emancipation.  Virginia  labored 
earnestly,  entreated,  implored  and  voted  for  its 
immediate  suppression,  in  which  she  was  joined 
by  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware,  but 
the  votes  of  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut  caused  its  defeat  and  secured  a  pro 
longation  of  the  infamous  traffic  for  twenty  years, 
from  1787  to  1808.1  Thus  the  avarice  and  in 
humanity  of  New  England  obtained  for  her  a 
twenty  years'  extension  of  license  to  prey  upon  a 
harmless  and  inoffensive  race,  and  fill  her  coffers 
with  blood  money  wrung  from  the  helpless  Afri 
can,  while  she  had  ample  time  either  to  dispose 
of  her  ships  or  direct  her  commerce  into  other 
channels. 

iCrjttcal   Periods   in   American   History,   p.   264. 


CHAPTER  III. 


After  the  adoption  of  the  "Missouri  Compro 
mise"  and  the  admission  of  that  State  into  the 
Union,  by  which  measures  slavery  was  restricted 
to  the  territory  south  of  a  line  running  thirty-six 
degrees  and  thirty  minutes  North,  a  season  of 
comparative  quiet  ensued  during  which  period  ex 
tending  from  1820  to  1840,  arose  the  great  issues 
of  Bank,  Tariff  and  other  questions  of  internal 
policy  upon  which  parties  divided  and  which  were 
fought  out  under  the  leadership  of  such  men  as 
Jackson,  Clay,  Calhoun,  Webster,  Hayne  and  other 
patriots  and  statesmen  of  national  fame. 

But  all  that  while  the  leaven  of  abolitionism 
was  working  quietly  and  insidiously  among  the 
masses  of  New  England,  and  fanatics  sprang  up 
all  over  the  country,  proclaiming  "the  enormity 
of  slavery  as  a  sin  and  a  crime  against  God." 

In  1821  was  commenced  the  publication  of  the 
first  Abolition  paper  called  "The  Genius  of  Uni 
versal  Emancipation."  In  1823  the  first  Abolition 
Society  was  organized,  and  similar  societies 
sprang  up  in  rapid  succession  all  over  New  Eng 
land.  Money  was  lavished  to  spread  the  new 
doctrine  that  slavery  was  "a  crime,"  and  slave 
holders  were  "thieves"  and  "murderers."  These 
slanders  upon  such  men  as  Washington,  Jeffer 
son,  Madison  and  many  other  great  and  good  men, 
statesmen  whose  valor  and  patriotism  and  wis 
dom  had  achieved  the  independence  of  the  country 
and  established  th«  Government,  all  of  whom 


38  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

were  slaveholders,  at  first  provoked  difficulties 
and  riots  all  over  the  North,  the  people  being,  as 
yet,  unperverted  by  the  abominable  and  disgust 
ing  teachings  of  negro  equality  and  miscegena 
tion.  In  1834  the  house  of  an  abolition  leader  was 
mobbed  in  New  York;  the  church  of  an  abolition 
preacher  was  attacked,  and  a  hall  in  which  an 
abolition  meeting  was  being  held  in  Philadelphia, 
was  burned  down.1 

Still,  those  raving  fanatics  continued  their  work 
of  printing  books,  tracts,  pamphlets,  magazines 
and  newspapers  and  scattering  them  broadcast 
over  the  country  without  money  and  without 
price.  They  had,  at  last,  found  a  "sectional  issue" 
and  a  "social  question"  upon  which  they  could 
vent  all  their  fanatical  rage,  and  enlist  and  com 
bine  all  their  powers  and  resources — hate-inspired 
falsehood  and  misrepresentations — to  drive  the 
South  from  a  Union  which  they,  themselves,  had 
always  hated,  and  from  which,  for  seventy  years, 
had  been  longing  and  threatening  to  withdraw. 

No  question  could  have  been  better  suited  to 
their  purpose.  The  great  body  of  the  negroes 
were  in  the  Southern  States,  and  the  Northern  peo 
ple  outside  of  New  England,  in  those  states  where 
slavery  had  never  found  a  foothold,  or,  long  since, 
had  ceased  to  exist,  did  not,  and  could  not  under 
stand  the  real  facts  and  the  true  conditions  of  the 
slaves  of  the  South.  They,  therefore,  were  de 
pendent  on,  and  fain  to  accept,  the  reports  and 
pamphlets  and  newspapers  published  mostly  by 
unprincipled  men  and  ambitious  politicians,  and 

iYouth's  History  of  the  Great  Civil  War,  p.  445. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      39 

such  books  as  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  itself  a  vile 
slander  and  misleading  libel  on  the  whole  South 
ern  people. 

It  is  a  simple  historical  fact  now  recognized 
everywhere,  and  which  no  well-informed,  un 
prejudiced  and  truth-loving  man  or  woman  will 
wish  or  dare  to  deny,  that  the  four  million  slaves 
of  the  South  were  the  best  cared  for,  best  con 
ditioned  and  most  contented  and  happy  body  of 
negroes  that  ever  existed  on  earth ;  and  our  form 
of  society  had  civilized  and  Christianized  them  as 
no  section  of  the  negro  race  had  ever  been  civil 
ized  and  Christianized  before. 

But  the  abolitionists  screamed  and  shouted 
from  the  housetops,  and  proclaimed  with  blare  of 
trumpets  through  the  land  that  the  Constitution 
framed,  and  the  Government  established  by  Wash 
ington  and  Jefferson  and  Madison  and  Mason  pro 
tected  the  Southern  people  in  the  most  shameful 
and  sinful  and  cruel  system  of  oppression  ever 
inflicted  on  a  helpless  and  downtrodden  people. 

William  Lloyd  Garrison,  who  has  the  unenvi 
able  distinction  of  being  the  father  of  the  abolition 
societies,  commenced  his  great  abolition  move 
ment  by  publicly  burning  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  And  years  afterwards  he  declared 
in  a  speech  that:  "No  act  of  ours  do  we  regard 
with  more  conscientious  approval  or  higher  satis 
faction  than  when,  several  years  ago,  on  the 
Fourth  of  July,  in  the  presence  of  a  great  as 
sembly  we  eommitted  to  the  flames  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States." 

And  he  said  on  another  occasion :    "This  Union 


40  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

is  a  lie !  The  American  Union  is  an  imposture — 
a  covenant  with  death  and  an  agreement  with 
hell.  I  am  for  its  overthrow.  Up  with  the  flag 
of  disunion !" 

Wendell  Phillips,  perhaps  the  ablest  of  all  the 
abolition  leaders,  said :  "The  Constitution  of  our 
fathers  was  a  mistake.  Tear  it  to  pieces  and  make 
a  better  one.  Our  aim  is  disunion,  breaking  up 
of  the  States."  At  an  annual  abolition  convention 
a  resolution  was  adopted  which  reads :  "Resolved, 
that  the  abolitionists  of  this  country  should  make 
it  one  of  the  primary  objects  of  this  agitation  to 
dissolve  the  American  Union."  And  these  same 
people  and  their  descendants  have  since  had  the 
brazen  effrontery  to  declare  that  John  C.  Calhoun, 
of  South  Carolina,  was  the  father  of  disunion. 

Mr.  Calhoun,  in  a  speech  in  the  United  States 
Senate  on  March  7,  1850,  said:  "No  man  would 
feel  more  happy  than  myself  to  believe  that  this 
Union,  formed  by  our  ancestors,  should  live  for 
ever.  Looking  back  to  the  long  course  of  forty 
years  service  here,  I  have  the  consolation  to  believe 
that  I  have  never  done  one  act  to  weaken  it — that 
I  have  done  full  justice  to  all  sections.  And  if  I 
have  ever  been  exposed  to  the  imputation  of  a 
contrary  motive,  it  is  because  I  have  been  willing 
to  defend  my  section  from  unconstitutional  en 
croachments."  And  in  another  speech  the  same 
great  statesman  said :  "Abolition  is  the  only  ques 
tion  of  sufficient  magnitude  and  potency  to  divide 
this  Union,  and  divide  it,  it  will,  or  drench  the 
country  in  blood,  if  not  arrested.  There  are  those 
who  see  no  danger  to  the  Union  in  the  violation 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES       41 

of  all  its  fundamental  principles,  but  are  full  of 
apprehension  when  danger  is  foretold.  If  my 
attachment  for  the  Union  were  less,  I  might 
tamper  with  the  deep  disease  that  now  afflicts  the 
body  politic,  and  keep  silent  until  the  patient  was 
ready  to  sink  under  the  mortal  blows." 

Thus  this  great  Southern  statesman,  when  he 
knew  that  he  was  nearing  the  end  of  his  career 
and  of  his  life,  yet  thrilling  with  undying  love  for 
the  Union  and  the  Constitution,  heard  the  mut 
tering  thunders,  saw  with  prophetic  ken  the  gath 
ering  storm,  and  warned  his  countrymen,  both 
North  and  South,  to  rise  up  in  their  might  and 
suppress  it. 

Jefferson  Davis,  who  was  a  member  during  the 
same  term  of  the  United  States  Senate,  said  in  a 
speech  delivered  in  that  body  on  June  27,  1850: 
"If  I  have  a  superstition,  Sir,  which  governs  my 
mind  and  holds  it  captive,  it  is  a  superstitious 
reverence  for  the  Union.  If  one  can  inherit  a  sen 
timent  I  may  be  said  to  have  inherited  this  from 
my  revolutionary  father." 

By  all  the  preceding  facts  and  utterances,  culled 
from  the  authentic  histories  of  the  times,  it  is 
clearly  established  beyond  doubt  or  cavil,  that  the 
wicked  doctrine  of  disunionism  had  its  birth  and 
origin  in  the  North;  and  while  the  abolitionists 
were  boldly  and  wickedly  preaching  up  a  mad  cru 
sade  against  the  Union,  and  educating  a  genera 
tion  to  hate  the  Government  of  our  fathers,  South 
ern  men  and  the  great  leaders  of  the  South  were 
begging,  imploring  and  pleading  for  "Union,  Con 
stitution  and  Enforcement  of  the  Laws." 


CHAPTER  IV. 


After  the  great  questions  of  Bank  and  Tariff, 
which,  for  twenty  years  had  arrayed  the  two  great 
parties  of  the  country,  the  Whig  and  the  Demo 
cratic  parties,  against  each  other  in  fiery  debate, 
though  without  sectional  bitterness,  had  been,  as 
it  was  hoped,  finally  disposed  of,  and  during  the 
season  of  quiet  which  followed  the  Whig  party 
commenced  gradually  to  dissolve  and  disintegrate, 
although  they  put  a  national  ticket  for  President 
in  the  field  in  1860.  After  that  campaign,  and 
during  the  momentous  events  which  followed  the 
party  disappeared  entirely,  as  an  organization, 
from  the  arena  of  American  politics. 

But  during  the  latter  part  of  the  period  men 
tioned,  from  1850  to  1854,  a  shrewd  and  unscru 
pulous  politician,  William  H.  Seward,  of  New 
York,  conceived  the  plan  of  creating  a  new  po 
litical  party  on  which  he  could,  himself,  ride  into 
power.  Seward  commenced  life  as  a  "Yankee 
Schoolmaster"  in  the  South,  where  he  was  treated 
with  that  kind  but  condescending  indifference  ac 
corded  to  all  of  his  hireling  class  of  adventurers 
by  the  proud  and  highminded  planters  and  landed 
proprietors  of  that  section.  General  Bonn  Piatt, 
who  rose  to  a  position  of  prominence  in  the  Fed 
eral  Army,  was  a  personal  friend  of  Seward, 
whom  he  thus  describes  in  his  character  sketches 
after  the  war :  "Seward  looked  down  on  the  white 
men  of  the  South  in  the  same  cynical  way  that  he 
did  upon  the  slaves.  He  had  no  pity  for  the  slaves 


44  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

and  no  hatred  for  the  master.  He  had  contempt 
for  them  all,  which  he  concealed  as  carefully  as  he 
did  his  contempt  for  the  United  States  Constitu 
tion.  Seward  had  trained  himself  to  believe  that 
worldly  wickedness  indicated  ability.  He  thought 
to  be  bad  was  to  be  clever.  He  thought  devotion 
to  wine,  women  and  infidelity  gave  proof  of  su 
perior  intelligence.  He  affected  a  wickedness  he 
did  not  always  feel  because  such  wickedness,  in  his 
estimation,  was  good  form."1 

In  politics  Seward  was  a  Hamiltonian  Federal 
ist,  who  had  been  Governor  of  the  State  of  New 
York  and  was  now  in  the  United  States  Senate. 
The  old  Federalist  party,  long  ago  crushed  nnd 
driven  from  power,  had  lain  broken  and  helpless 
for  more  than  two  decades.  Seward  knew  that 
the  abolitionists  of  New  England  had,  by  thirty 
years  of  education  of  the  public  mind  and  the 
persistent  training  of  a  rising  generation,  created 
throughout  the  North  a  passionate  and  undying 
hatred  of  the  South  and  her  institutions,  and  he 
determined,  by  uniting  that  element  with  the 
broken  remains  of  the  old  Federalist  organization, 
to  create  a  new  sectional  party  which  should  sweep 
itself  into  power  and  secure  the  darlfng  and  long 
cherished  purpose  of  both  factions — the  overthrow 
of  the  Constitution  and  the  destruction  of  the 
labor  system  of  the  South. 

With  that  wicked  programme  in  view  this  wily 
politician,  William  H.  Seward,  who  afterwards 
became  Secretary  of  State  in  Lincoln's  Cabinet, 
and,  as  such,  the  real  head  of  the  Federal  Govern- 

iThe  Men  Who  Saved  the  Union,  Donn  Pratt,  pp. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES       45 

ment,  issued  a  call  for  a  Convention  to  meet  at 
Auburn,  New  York,  on  September  26,  1854,  "to 
organize  a  Republican  Party  which  shall  represent 
the  friends  of  freedom."  This  meeting  of  de- 
structionists  determined  to  issue  a  call  for  a  Con 
vention  to  be  composed  of  delegates  from  the 
Northern  states  only,  to  meet  on  July  4,  1856,  and 
nominate  a  candidate  for  President  of  the  United 
States.  The  Convention  met  according  to  pro 
gramme  and  nominated  John  C.  Fremont. 

Thus  was  born  that  purely  sectional  party 
which  arbitrarily  assumed  the  honored  name 
previously  borne  by  the  followers  of  Jefferson,  and 
was  known  throughout  the  War  and  the  darker 
Reconstruction  Period  which  followed,  as  the 
Black  Republican  Party;  a  party  which  deluged 
the  country  with  blood,  sacrificed  a  million  lives 
and  destroyed  untold  billions  of  property — an  ap 
palling  hecatomb  piled  on  the  altar  of  sectional 
hate  and  unreasoning  fanaticism. 

Then  arose  the  great  Kansas  excitement. 
Kansas  was  a  territory  ly tag  ^£§t  of  the  State  of 
Missouri,  and,  therefore,  ^sMM  Ttf  the  extended 
line  of  36  degrees  and  30  minutes  which  was 
agreed  upon  by  the  "Missouri  Compromise"  as  the 
northern  limit  of  slavery.  When  this  territory 
was  thrown  open  to  settlement  it  at  once  became 
apparent  that  it  would  be  largely  occupied  by 
Southern  people.  The  abolitionists  of  the  North 
promptly  "threw  themselves  into  the  breach." 
Emigrant  societies  were  organized  all  over  New 
England,  large  sums  of  money  were  raised,  arms 
and  ammunition  purchased  and  hordes  of  aboli- 


46  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

tionists  were  rushed  out  to  take  possession  of  the 
country  and  prevent  it  from  becoming  a  "Slave 
State." 

One  of  the  leaders  of  those  adventurers  was 
John  Brown,  whose  aim  and  ambition  was  to  get 
up  a  war  if  he  could.  The  abolition  preachers 
all  over  New  England  were  active  and  zealous  in 
exciting  their  people  to  deeds  of  violence  and 
bloodshed. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher,  the  idolized  and  lionized 
pastor  of  the  famous  "Plymouth  Congregation," 
told  his  people  that  in  dealing  with  slaveholders 
"Sharp's  rifles  are  better  than  Bibles,"  and  that 
"it  is  a  crime  to  shoot  at  a  slaveholder  and  not  hit 
him." 

All  over  New  England  and  largely  in  the  North 
ern  States  this  fanaticism  prevailed.  Ministers 
of  the  Gospel  of  Peace  bought  and  distributed 
guns  and  rifles  for  the  Devil's  work  of  crime  and 
bloodshed.  The  North  was  being  slowly  but  sure 
ly  educated  for  the  carnival  of  slaughter  and  arson 
that  speedily  followed. 

I  have  shown  indisputably  all  through  this 
paper  that  there  had  always  existed  at  the  North 
a  powerful  element  opposed  to  the  Union  as  it  was 
formed  and  the  Government  as  it  was  administ 
ered.  Yet,  throughout  that  long  period  from  the 
formation  of  the  Government,  in  1787,  to  Lin 
coln's  election  in  1860,  not  one  single  Southern 
statesman  ever  raised  his  voice  against  the  Union 
as  it  was  organized  by  pur  patriotic  forefathers. 
The  South  was  solid  in  its  admiration  of,  and  its 
devotion  to  the  principles  of  Government  on  which 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES       47 

the  Union  was  founded.  But  on  this  vital  subject 
the  North  was  divided.  The  Democratic  party 
was  attached  to  the  Union  and  devoted  to  its 
principles.  The  Black  Republican  party  was  an 
enemy  to  both  the  Union  and  the  Constitution. 

As  already  shown,  there  were  in  the  Republican 
party  as  organized,  two  factions,  the  fanatical 
abolitionists,  and  the  survivors  or  representatives 
of  the  old  Federalist  or  Hamiltonian  party.  But 
they  were  united  in  their  desire  and  aim  to  trample 
upon  the  Constitution  and  revolutionize  the  Gov 
ernment;  and  nothing  that  the  South  could  have 
done  less  than  an  entire  and  absolute  surrender 
of  her  institutions  and  all  her  rights  as  separate 
and  independent  states  would  have  satisfied  them. 
Their  plans  and  intentions  were  plainly  set  forth 
in  a  speech  by  Governor  Banks,  of  Massachusetts, 
in  1856,  in  which  he  said:  "I  can  conceive  of  a 
time  when  this  Constitution  shall  not  be  in  exist 
ence — when  we  shall  have  an  absolute  dictatorial 
government  transmitted  from  age  to  age,  with 
men  at  its  head  who  are  made  rulers  by  military 
commission,  or  who  claim  an  hereditary  right  to 
govern  those  over  whom  they  are  placed."  When 
the  war  which  those  unreasoning  fanatics  forced 
upon  the  South  did  finally  burst  in  all  its  fury,  this 
same  Banks  became  a  General  in  the  invading 
army,  and  after  his  flight  across  the  Potomac  from 
the  Shenandoah  Valley  to  escape  the  pursuing 
vengeance  of  Stonewall  Jackson's  "foot  cavalry," 
in  another  speech  at  Arlington  he  said,  pointing 
to  the  Capitol  in  Washington :  "When  this  war  is 
over,  that  will  be  the  Capitol  of  a  great  nation. 


48  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

Then  there  will  be  no  longer  New  Yorkers,  Penn- 
sylvanians  and  Virginians,  but  we  shall  all  be 
simply  Americans."  Senator  Cameron,  of  Penn 
sylvania,  expressed  the  same  views  and  sentiments 
at  a  public  dinner  in  Washington  and  those  views 
were  echoed  and  re-echoed  all  over  the  North  by 
the  henchmen  and  mouthpieces  of  the  new  party, 
plainly  showing  that  the  aim  and  object  of  that 
party  was  to  crush  the  South  into  submission,  de 
stroy  the  autonomy  of  all  the  States  and  consoli 
date  them  all  into  one  great  despotic  Government. 
And  that  is  exactly  the  kind  of  government  they 
did  force  upon  the  country  in  the  Administration 
of  Abraham  Lincoln. 


CHAPTER  V. 


Lincoln  was  nominated  for  the  Presidency  by 
the  Convention  which  met  in  Chicago  in  1860,  and 
the  campaign  which  resulted  in  his  election  was 
conducted  with  such  a  spirit  of  violence  and  ma 
lignity  towards  the  South  that  our  people  were 
thoroughly  alarmed  and  fully  convinced  that  their 
society  and  their  lives  would  not  be  safe  in  the 
Union  if  that  party  should  come  into  power. 

An  infamous  book  breathing  sedition  and  mur 
der  had  been  published  the  year  before  known  as 
"The  Helper  Book,"1  and  a  hundred  thousand 
copies  of  it  were  circulated  with  money  raised  by 
subscription  among  the  Black  Republican  mem 
bers  of  Congress.  This  abominable  book  boldly 
threatened  the  people  of  the  South  with  assassina 
tion  and  death  by  any  means  that  would  enable 
those  vandals  to  liberate  the  slaves  and  subvert 
the  society  of  the  Southern  States.  A  few  extracts 
from  its  murder-breathing  pages  will  suffice  to 
fix  its  infamy  forever  in  the  memory  of  ourselves 
and  our  children:  "Against  slaveholders  as  a 
body  we  wage  exterminating  war."  "We  contend 
that  slaveholders  are  more  criminal  than  common 
murderers."  "The  negroes,  nine  cases  out  of  ten, 
would  be  delighted  at  the  opportunity  to  cut  their 
Masters'  throats." 

"Smallpox  is  a  nuisanee;  strychnine  is  a  nuis 
ance;  mad-dogs  are  a  nuisance,  and  so  are  slave- 

1So  called  from  the  name  of  its  author,  H.  R.  Helper,  a  renegade 
North  Carolinian  who  "left  his  country  for  his  country's  good." — The 
Impending  Crisis  Dissected,  Wolfe,  pp.  1-45. 


50  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

holders;  it  is  our  business,  nay  it  is  our  impera 
tive  duty  to  abate  nuisances;  we  propose,  there 
fore,  with  the  exception  of  strychnine,  to  extermi 
nate  this  catalogue  from  beginning  to  end."1 

This  outrageous  book  contained  three  hundred 
pages  of  such  murderous  and  abominable  stuff 
and,  used  as  a  campaign  document  in  the  canvass 
that  resulted  in  the  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
to  the  Presidency,  did  not  fail  to  fill  the  South  with 
indignation  and  alarm.  As  previously  said,  the 
leading  Republican  members  of  Congress  sub 
scribed  for  the  free  distribution  of  a  hundred 
thousand  copies;  and  William  H.  Seward,  the 
originator  and  father  of  the  Black  Republican 
party,  gave  it  his  special  endorsement  in  which 
he  declared  it  "a  work  of  great  merit." 

The  book  was  preceded  and  followed  by  speeches 
and  pamphlets  from  radical  politicians  all  over 
the  North  that  were  equally  disgusting  and  brutal 
in  tone  and  sentiment.  Joshua  Giddings,  a  lead 
ing  politician  and  Congressman  of  Ohio  (Ohio, 
one  of  the  five  states  that  Virginia  had  presented 
as  a  free  gift  to  the  Union),  said  in  one  of  those 
bitter  and  murderous  harangues:  "I  look  for 
ward  to  a  day  when  I  shall  see  a  servile  insurrec 
tion  in  the  South.  When  the  black  man,  supplied 
with  bayonets,  shall  wage  a  war  of  extermination 
against  the  whites ;  when  the  master  shall  see  his 
dwelling  in  flames  and  his  hearth  polluted;  and 
though  I  may  not  mock  at  their  calamity  and 
laugh  when  their  fear  cometh,  yet  I  shall  hail  it  as 
the  dawn  of  a  political  millenium." 

iThe  Impending  Crisis  in  the  South,  H.  R.  Helper,  pp.  120-139. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES       51 

Erastus  Hopkins  said :  "If  peaceful  means  fail 
us  and  we  are  driven  to  the  last  extremity  when 
ballots  are  useless,  then  we  will  make  bullets 
effective." 

For  years  Northern  pulpits  and  Northern  news 
papers  and  pamphlets  and  books  had  boiled  and 
seethed  and  bubbled  over  with  such  bloody  threats 
against  the  people  of  the  South,  who  had  never 
harmed  or  given  them  cause  for  offense  and  only 
asked  to  be  let  alone. 

But  time  was  now  fully  ripe  to  wreak  their 
causeless  vengeance  and  put  their  bloody  threats 
into  execution.  In  1859,  less  than  two  years  be 
fore  the  election  of  Lincoln,  John  Brown,  a  native 
of  New  England  and  a  sojourner  in  Kansas,  came 
into  Virginia  with  a  band  of  men  for  the  purpose 
of  inciting  and  leading  an  insurrection  of  the 
negroes  to  murder  the  white  men  and  women  and 
children  of  the  South.  Brown  and  his  gang  of 
murderers  were  armed  themselves,  and  supplied 
with  "pikes,"1  made  in  New  England,  to  distribute 
to  the  negroes,  who  were  ignorant  of  the  use  of 
firearms,  and  plenty  of  guns  and  ammunition 
bought  with  money  secretly  contributed  in  the 
North,  with  which  they  hoped  to  inaugurate  a  gen 
eral  uprising,  and  a  regular  holocaust  of  murder, 
arson  and  rapine. 

But  the  plot  was  discovered  and  nipped  in  the 
bud  by  the  prompt  and  timely  action  of  the  State 
and  Federal  authorities,  and  Brown  and  his  gang 
were  captured  and  hung  by  regular  process  of  law 

*One  of  those  pikes  is  now  on  exihibition  in  the  State  Library  at 
Richmond. 


52  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

in  the  Virginia  courts.  The  calm,  deliberate  and 
lawful  execution  of  this  man  by  the  sovereign  and 
outraged  State  of  Virginia  caused  a  fearful  out 
break  of  fury  and  rage  and  redoubled  threats  of 
retaliatory  vengeance  at  the  North. 

Prayer  meetings  were  held  in  most  of  the 
churches  in  New  England  and  practically  through 
out  the  North  and  West,  including  "Bleeding 
Kansas/'  who  has  placed  a  statue  of  Brown  in  the 
Hall  of  Fame  at  the  Nation's  Capitol,  where  he 
stands  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  those  peerless 
gentlemen  and  patriots,  George  Washington  and 
Robert  E.  Lee. 

Those  prayer  meetings  were  held  to  invoke  the 
vengeance  of  Heaven  on  those  who  had  caused  the 
just  penalty  of  the  law  to  fall  upon  one  of  the  most 
pitiless  murderers  ever  known  in  the  criminal 
annals  of  this  country,  and  bells  were  tolled  to 
glorify  his  memory.  At  a  public  meeting  in 
Massachusetts,  attended  by  United  States  Sena 
tors  and  other  men  of  prominence  in  the  political 
history  of  the  Puritan  State,  it  was  unanimously 
"Resolved,  that  it  is  the  right  and  duty  of  slaves 
to  resist  their  masters,  and  the  right  and  duty  of 
the  people  of  the  North  to  incite  them  to  resist 
ance  and  to  aid  them  in  it." 

At  Rocheford,  Illinois,  a  public  meeting  called 
by  the  leading  citizens,  unanimously  "Resolved, 
that  the  City  bells  be  tolled  one  hour  in  commem 
oration  of  John  Brown." 

Horace  Greeley,  the  famous  founder  and  Editor 
of  the  New  York  Tribune,  and  one  of  the  head 
lights  of  the  abolition  party,  said:  "Let  no  one 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES       53 

doubt  that  History  will  accord  an  honorable  niche 
to  John  Brown." 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  whose  writings,  when 
purged  of  the  taint  of  New  England  fanaticism, 
are  read  and  admired  and  quoted  approvingly  in 
two  hemispheres,  said  that  the  hanging  of  Brown, 
"made  the  gallows  as  glorious  as  the  Cross."  And 
afterwards  he  added  to  that  sacriligious  utterance 
the  further  information  that  "Our  Captain  Brown 
is  happily  a  representative  of  the  American  Re 
public.  He  did  not  believe  in  moral  suasion,  but 
in  putting  things  through." 

A  volume  of  many  thousand  pages  might  be 
filled  with  similar  extracts  from  sermons,  prayers, 
speeches  and  newspapers  all  over  the  North,  show 
ing  the  spirit  of  wild  fanaticism  and  venomous 
hate  that  had  taken  possession  of  the  public  mind, 
or  at  least,  the  mind  of  that  portion  of  the  public 
that  was  swayed  by  such  fanatical  teachers  as 
Garrison  and  Phillips  and  Emerson  and  Beecher 
and  Seward  and  their  immediate  dupes  and  fol 
lowers. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  wild  excitement  that 
Lincoln  was  nominated  for  the  Presidency  by  the 
party  which  had  so  universally  endorsed  and  abet 
ted  Old  John  Brown's  murderous  raid  into  Vir- 
g'inia. 

Thoroughly  aroused  and  alarmed,  the  Southern 
people  demanded  a  pledge  or  guarantee  that  the 
bloody  and  diabolical  threats  which  had  been  so 
boldly  and  boastfully  made  against  their  institu 
tions  and  property  and  lives  should  not  be  put 
into  effect  in  case  the  Black  Republican  party 


54  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

should  come  into  power  and  get  possession  of  the 
Government.  Instead  of  pledges  and  reasonable 
assurances,  they  received  sneers,  abuse,  re 
proaches,  insults  and  additional  threats. 

The  fact  is,  as  was  clearly  indicated  then  by 
"the  signs  of  the  times"  and  fully  proven  since  by 
the  developments  of  historical  truth,  the  abolition 
leaders  were  fully  determined  on  war;  and  all 
their  tricks  and  cunning  were  brought  into  play 
to  goad  or  exasperate  the  South  to  commit  what 
they  chose  to  call  an  "overt  act"  to  give  them  an 
excuse  to  let  loose  the  dogs  of  war. 

As  already  shown,  and  as  all  history  fully  sub 
stantiates,  the  Southern  people  had  always  been 
contented  with  the  Union  as  it  wras  established  by 
the  fathers,  and  only  desired  and  demanded  their 
just  and  equal  rights  under  the  Constitution.  On 
the  other  hand  the  facts  are  equally  patent  and 
indisputable  that  in  the  North  there  had  always 
been  a  busy  and  restless  party  working,  by  fair 
means  and  foul,  to  undermine  and  overthrow  the 
Union  because  they  hated  the  Constitution  and 
were  jealous  of,  and  at  enmity  with  the  South  be 
cause  of  her  controlling  influence  in  the  formation 
and  administration  of  the  Government,  and  of  the 
old  grudge  growing  out  of  the  early  conflict  be 
tween  the  Monarchial  principles  of  Alexander 
Hamilton  and  the  free  Democratic  principles  of 
Thomas  Jefferson,  which  latter  principles  pre 
vailed  and  triumphed  to  the  utter  confusion  and 
overthrow  of  the  former.  This  old  enmity  and 
hatred  on  the  part  of  the  North  had  smouldered 
and  burned  with  more  or  less  intensity  ever  since 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES       55 

the  formation  of  the  Government  and  now,  re 
cruited  and  strengthened  by  the  fiery  and  fanati 
cal  element  of  New  England  abolitionism,  the  com 
bined  forces  felt  themselves  strong  enough  to 
precipitate  on  the  South  the  long  threatened  and 
long  dreaded  war. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


Lincoln  was  elected  in  the  fall  of  1860.  He  car 
ried  every  Northern  State  except  New  Jersey,  thus 
receiving  a  majority  of  the  electoral  votes,  but  he 
was  in  a  minority  of  a  million  and  a  half  of  the 
popular  vote.  The  Southern  people  were  now 
thoroughly  and  fully  aroused  to  the  threatening 
and  dangerous  situation  of  affairs.  The  party 
coming  into  power  had  openly  and  persistently 
declared  unrelenting  and  exterminating  war 
against  them.  The  Chicago  platform  was  shrewd 
ly  and  cautiously  worded,  but  the  spirit  and  temper 
of  the  party  that  promulgated  it  had  previously 
been  fully  revealed  and  set  forth  by  the  violent 
and  revolutionary  utterances  of  its  leading  men 
all  over  the  North,  as  hereinbefore  extensively 
quoted. 

As  showing  that  the  same  spirit  and  intentions 
still  prevailed,  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  of  Ohio,  whose 
speech  on  a  former  occasion  is  noticed  on  a  previ 
ous  page  of  this  paper,  declared  on  the  floor  of 
the  Chicago  Convention  that  its  nominees  could 
not  get  the  support  of  the  Abolition  wing  of  the 
party  unless  the  resolutions  pledged  the  party  as 
a  whole  to  carry  out  the  doctrine  that  "all  men 
are  created  equal,"  which,  in  the  abolition  creed, 
had  always  meant  negro  emancipation  and  negro 
equality. 

Thus,  by  a  cunning  and  false  use  of  a  popular 
phrase  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Chi 
cago  Convention  pledged  itself  to  unprovoked  and 


58  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

unjust  war  upon  the  South  to  overturn  and  destroy 
Southern  society,  as  it  existed,  and  make  the  negro 
the  political  and  social  equal  of  the  white  man, 
"peaceably,  perhaps,  if  they  were  permitted  to  do 
so,  but  forcibly  if  they  must."  And  William  H. 
Seward  had  avowed  the  same  sentiment  in  a 
speech  in  the  United  States  Senate.  In  the  lan 
guage  telegraphed  to  his  constituents  by  the  Hon. 
J.  L.  M.  Curry,  then  a  member  of  Congress  from 
Alabama,  "the  last  argument  for  peace  had  been 
exhausted"  and  it  was  to  save  themselves  from 
such  a  destructive  and  ruinous  war  that  the  South 
ern  States  determined  to  withdraw  quietly  and 
peaceably  from  the  Union. 

As  previously  shown,  their  right  to  do  so  had 
never  been  questioned  or  denied.  They  had  all 
joined  the  Union  without  compulsion  and  by  their 
own  voluntary  act,  and  the  best  and  wisest  men, 
both  North  and  South,  had  always  held  and  de 
clared  that  the  States,  having  only  delegated  cer 
tain  powers  to  the  Federal  Government,  could  re 
sume  those  powers  whenever  their  interests  and 
welfare  demanded  it. 

As  long  ago  as  1811  Josiah  Quincy,  of  Massa 
chusetts,  an  original  and  bitter  Federalist,  who 
was  a  member  of  Congress  during  Jefferson's  ad 
ministration,  and  who  lived  long  enough  to  become 
a  warm  friend  and  supporter  of  Lincoln  and  the 
abolitionists,  said  in  a  speech  against  the  bill  to 
admit  Louisiana  as  a  State  into  the  Union  that, 
if  the  bill  passed,  "it  will  be  the  right  of  all  and 
the  duty  of  some  to  prepare  for  separation;  ami 
cably  if  they  can,  forcibly  if  they  must."  A  mem- 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      59 

ber  called  Mr.  Quincy  to  order  for  making  a 
"treasonable  utterance"  but  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  fully  sustained  him. 

Judge  William  Rawle,  of  Pennsylvania,  one  of 
the  ablest  constitutional  lawyers  in  the  United 
States,  whom  Washington  appointed  United  States 
District  Attorney  in  1791,  and  afterwards  ten 
dered  him  a  seat  in  his  Cabinet,  said  in  his  book 
"Views  of  the  United  States  Constitution :"  "It 
depends  on  the  State  itself  whether  it  will  con 
tinue  a  member  of  the  Union.  To  deny  this  right 
would  be  inconsistent  with  the  principles  upon 
which  our  political  systems  were  founded.  The 
States,  may  wholly  withdraw  from  the  Union,  but 
while  they  continue  they  must  retain  the  character 
of  representative  republics." 

President  Jefferson  expressed  the  same  view 
in  a  few  words:  "States  may  wholly  withdraw 
their  delegated  powers."  President  Madison,  in 
speaking  of  the  States  as  the  parties  to  a  com 
pact,  said :  "The  States,  themselves,  must  be  the 
judges  in  the  last  resort  whether  the  bargain 
made  has  been  preserved  or  broken." 

In  1833  President  John  Quincy  Adams  said  if 
secession  ever  occurred  "it  would  be  better  for 
the  people  of  these  disunited  States  to  part  in 
peace  from  each  other  than  to  be  held  together 
by  constraint." 

In  1850  Salmon  P.  Chase,  afterwards  Chief 
Justice  of  the  United  States,  said  in  a  speech  in 
the  United  States  Senate  that  "in  the  case  of  a 
State  resuming  her  powers  I  know  of  no  remedy 
to  prevent  it."  In  1861  Edward  Everett,  of 


60  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

Massachusetts,  said:  "To  expect  to  hold  fifteen 
States  in  the  Union  by  force  is  preposterous.  If 
our  sister  States  must  leave  us,  in  the  name  of 
Heaven  let  them  go  in  peace/'  Three  days  before 
South  Carolina  seceded,  Horace  Greeley  said  in  the 
New  York  Tribune,  which  was  always  acknowl 
edged  as  a  leading  organ  of  the  Republican  party, 
that  "the  Declaration  of  Independence  fully  justi 
fied  her  in  the  act."  And  again  in  February,  1861, 
the  same  paper  said :  "If  the  Cotton  States  desire 
to  form  an  independent  nation  they  have  a  clear 
moral  right  to  do  so." 

And  Abraham  Lincoln,  himself,  after  his  in 
auguration  as  President,  speaking  through  his 
Secretary  of  State,  William  H.  Seward,  on  the  10th 
of  April,  1861,  said  that  he  was  "not  disposed  to 
reject  a  cardinal  dogma  of  their  (the  Secession 
ists)  namely,  that  the  Federal  Government  cannot 
reduce  the  seceding  States  to  obedience  by  con 
quest  even  if  he  were  disposed  to  question  the 
proposition;  but,  in  fact,  the  President  willingly 
accepts  it  as  true."1 

Thus  when  in  the  light  of  all  history,  extending 
over  a  period  of  seventy  years,  and  largely  drawn 
from  the  acts  and  utterances  of  their  own  writers, 
speakers  and  leaders,  the  Southern  States,  fully 
convinced  by  a  long  and  bitter  experience  of  the 
impossibility  of  living  together  in  a  state  of  peace 
and  harmony  under  the  same  Government  with 
their  bitter  and  implacable  enemies,  determined, 
purely  as  an  act  of  self-defence,  and  self-preserva 
tion,  to  quietly,  and,  they  hoped,  peacefully,  with- 

1Letters  and  State  Papers  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  N.  &  H. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES       61 

draw  from  the  Union,  which  all  history  shows, 
and  all  the  world  is  now  convinced,  they  had  a 
perfect  right  to  do,  a  wild  hue  and  cry  was  raised 
all  over  the  North  by  the  same  people  and  the 
same  party  who  had  always  desired  and  threatened 
to  do  the  same  thing,  that  the  South  had  made  war 
on  the  Government  for  the  purpose  of  "destroying 
the  Union  and  perpetuating  slavery." 

Their  act  of  withdrawal  was  in  no  possible  sense 
a  declaration  of  war  upon  the  Federal  Govern 
ment.  They  had  simply  exercised  their  undeniable 
and  unquestionable  right,  as  expressed  in  the 
language  of  both  Washington  and  Jefferson,  "to 
resume  their  delegated  powers"  for  the  purpose  of 
governing  themselves,  and  conducting  their  own 
affairs  in  their  own  way  without  the  continual 
intermeddling  of  New  England  fanatics  who  were 
never  satisfied  to  "attend  to  their  own  business 
and  leave  their  neighbors  to  do  the  same." 

The  Federal  Government,  with  Abraham  Lin 
coln  as  a  convenient  and  pliant  tool  at  its  head, 
was  driven  by  the  whip  and  spur  of  those  wild 
and  unreasoning  fanatics  to  inaugurate  a  bloody 
and  cruel  and  unjust  war  upon  a  numerically  weak 
and  defenceless  people  who  only  asked  to  be  let 
alone. 

In  retiring  from  the  Union  the  seceding  States 
offered  and  entreated  peaceful  negotiations  in  re 
gard  to  all  the  public  property  claimed  by  the  Fed 
eral  Government  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  re 
tiring  States.  The  forts  and  public  buildings 
which  they  seized  and  offered  to  pay  for  could 
not  have  been  built  without  the  consent  and  co- 


62  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

operation  of  the  States  in  which  they  were  locat 
ed  ;  they  were  built  for  the  protection  of  the  har 
bors  and  cities  of  those  States ;  they  were,  there 
fore,  "partnership  property"  each  of  the  States 
being  an  equal  partner  in  their  ownership,  and 
necessarily  went  with  the  withdrawing  States  who 
were  willing,  and  offered  to  pay  a  just  proportion 
of  their  cost. 

Thus,  the  seceding  States  expressed  an  earnest 
desire  to  adjust  all  matters  of  dispute  or  conten 
tion  by  mutual  and  friendly  agreement.  They 
were  neither  rebels  nor  traitors.  They  acted  pure 
ly  upon  their  Constitutional  rights,  as  were  de 
clared  and  acknowledged  by  the  ablest  Statesmen 
and  patriots  of  all  parties  and  all  sections  in  all 
ages  of  the  Government,  and  upon  what  was  the 
unanimous  understanding  of  the  States  when  they 
adopted  the  Constitution.  Not  a  single  State 
would  ever  have  become  a  member  of  the  Union 
had  she  imagined  that  the  Federal  Government 
thus  instituted  would  ever  attempt  to  hold  them 
in  it  by  war  and  bloodshed. 

But  our  wise  and  far-seeing  Statesman  and 
orator,  Patrick  Henry,  foresaw  the  danger,  and 
with  all  the  thunders  of  his  mighty  eloquence 
warned  his  compatriots  of  the  "poison  under  its 
wings,"  and,  by  his  urgent  and  persistent  advice, 
the  State  of  Virginia,  in  her  act  of  ratification  and 
acceptance,  inserted  a  clause  expressly  reserving 
the  right  to  withdraw  from  the  Union  whenever 
her  rights  and  privileges  under  the  Constitution 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES       63 

were  or  should  be  violated  or  endangered  without 
redress.1 

The  leaders  of  the  party  that  forced  and  pre 
cipitated  the  war  on  the  South,  when  they  raised 
the  diabolical  cry  of  "rebel"  and  "traitor,"  knew 
in  their  hypocritical  hearts  that  we  were  not  trait 
ors.  They,  or  the  majority  of  them  had  always 
been  disunionists  themselves.  Many  of  them  had 
been  talking  and  writing  and  threatening  seces 
sion  for  thirty  years,  and  their  fathers  and  pre 
decessors  had  done  the  same  thing  for  more  than 
forty  years  before  them.  It  was  not  love  for  the 
Union  that  caused  them  to  wage  the  war.  With 
some  it  was  a  settled  and  fiendish  hatred  of  the 
South,  with  others  a  foolish  and  fanatical  love 
of  the  negro,  (at  a  distance),  and  with  others, 
still — the  descendants  and  successors  of  the  old 
Federalist  element — a  traitorous  desire  to  over 
throw  the  free  Government  of  the  United  States 
and  establish  a  consolidated  or  "strong"  govern 
ment  after  annihilating  the  sovereignty  of  the 
States.  So  much  for  the  leaders. 

Of  the  great  mass  of  soldiers  that  were  drawn 
into  it  some  were,  doubtless,  moved  by  patriotic 
motives,  others  of  the  more  ignorant  and  least  in 
formed  were  made  to  believe  that  the  South  had 
declared  war  against  the  North,  and  others,  still, 
were  swept  into  the  vortex  without  any  motive  at 
all.  In  the  language  of  a  Northern  historian,  who 
saw  and  knew  whereof  he  wrote :  "A  wild  and 
senseless  excitement  had  broken  out.  Men  did 
not  reason,  they  raved.  Those  who  hesitated  and 

iLife  of  Patrick  Henry,  Wm.  Wirt  and  Debates  of  the  Virginia 
Convention. 


64  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

asked  'Why'  were  knocked  down,  and  the  BlacK 
Republican  leaders  instigated  their  followers  to 
mob  and  intimidate  and  overawe  every  man  who 
dared  to  think  for  himself,  and  reason  or  argue 
about  the  causes  and  object  of  the  war."1 

South  Carolina  seceded  in  December,  1860.  She 
was  followed  in  quick  succession  by  all  the  Gulf 
States,  including  Florida  and  Louisiana,  in  Janu 
ary,  1861. 

The  South  had  always  loved  the  Union,  and  did 
all  she  possibly  could  do  with  honor  and  self-re 
spect  to  preserve  its  integrity  without  an  ignoble 
and  pusillanimous  surrender  of  the  rights  and 
privileges  guaranteed  to  her  under  the  Constitu 
tion.  The  spirit  of  sorrow  and  deep  regret  and 
kindly  feeling  with  which  she  severed  her  con 
nection  with  the  Northern  States  cannot  be  more 
truly  and  feelingly  expressed  than  was  done  by 
those  pure  patriots  and  thrice  honorable  men,  Jef 
ferson  Davis,  the  executive  head,  who  guided  the 
destinies  of  the  new  born  nation,  and  Robert  E. 
Lee,  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  her  armies  in  the 
field.  In  retiring  from  the  United  States  Senate 
to  give  his  allegiance  to,  and  cast  his  fortunes 
with  his  native  State  of  Mississippi,  which  had 
already  seceded,  Mr.  Davis  said  in  closing  one  of 
the  most  feeling  and  eloquent  speeches  ever  heard 
in  that  body:  "Then,  Senators,  we  recur  to  the 
compact  that  binds  us  together;  we  recur  to  the 
principles  upon  which  our  Government  was  found 
ed  ;  and  when  you  deny  them,  and  when  you  deny 
to  us  the  right  to  withdraw  from  a  Government 
which,  thus  perverted,  threatens  to  be  destructive 

iHistory  of  the  Great  Civil  War,  Horton,  p.  73, 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES       65 

of  our  rights,  we  but  tread  in  the  path  of  our 
fathers  when  we  proclaim  our  independence  and 
take  the  hazard.  This  is  done,  not  in  hostility  to 
others,  not  to  injure  any  section  of  the  country, 
not  even  for  our  own  pecuniary  benefit ;  but  from 
the  high  and  solemn  motive  of  defending  and  pro 
tecting  the  rights  we  inherited,  and  which  it  is 
our  duty  to  transmit  unshorn  to  our  children.  I 
am  sure  I  feel  no  hostility  toward  you,  Senators 
from  the  North.  I  am  sure  there  is  not  one  of 
you,  whatever  sharp  discussion  there  may  have 
been  between  us,  to  whom  I  cannot  now  say  in  the 
presence  of  my  God,  I  wish  you  well ;  and  I  feel  I 
but  express  the  desire  of  the  people  I  represent 
when  I  say  I  hope,  and  they  hope,  for  peaceable 
relations  with  you,  though  we  must  part." 

General  Lee  said  after  resigning  his  commission 
in  the  United  States  Army  to  offer  his  stainless 
sword  to  his  own  beloved  Virginia:  "All  the 
South  has  ever  asked  or  desired  is,  that  the  Union 
founded  by  our  forefathers  should  be  preserved; 
and  that  the  Government,  as  it  was  originally 
organized,  should  be  administered  in  purity  and 
truth." 

And  as  to  the  monstrous  charge,  made  in  the 
face  of  all  the  accumulated  testimony  of  half  a 
century  to  the  contrary,  that  the  South  went  to 
war  to  destroy  the  Union  and  perpetuate  slavery, 
General  Lee  said  on  another  occasion:  "If  I 
owned  all  the  millions  of  slaves  in  the  South  I 
would  free  them  all  with  a  stroke  of  the  pen  to 
avert  the  war!" 

In  proof  of  his  sincerity,  if  any  proof  were 


66  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

needed,  is  the  well-known  fact  that  he  never  owned 
a  slave,  except  a  few  he  inherited  from  his  moth 
er's  estate  and  he  emancipated  all  of  them  long 
before  the  war.  Stonewall  Jackson  never  owned  a 
slave  except  two,  a  man  and  a  woman  that  he 
bought  at  their  own  request,  and  he  at  once  gave 
them  the  privilege  of  buying  their  freedom  with 
the  wages  received  for  their  services  to  reimburse 
him  for  the  price  he  paid  for  them.  The  man 
accepted  the  offer  and  in  due  time  earned  his  free 
dom  ;  but  the  woman  declined  the  offer  and  chose 
to  remain  a  servant  in  General  Jackson's  family. 
Joseph  E.  Johnson  never  owned  a  slave  and,  like 
General  Lee,  was  sincerely  opposed  to  slavery. 
A.  P.  Hill  never  owned  a  slave,  and  regarded 
"slavery  as  a  great  evil."  J.  E.  B.  Stuart  inherit 
ed  one  slave  from  his  father,  and,  while  serving 
in  the  United  States  army  in  the  far  West,  pur 
chased  another.  Both  of  these  he  disposed  of  long 
before  the  war — one  because  of  her  cruelty  to  his 
child,  and  the  other  he  sold  to  a  man  who  engaged 
to  take  the  negro  back  to  his  old  home  in  Ken 
tucky. 

Fitzhugh  Lee  never  owned  a  slave. 

Commodore  Matthew  F.  Maury,  our  great 
"Pathfinder  of  the  Sea,"  never  owned  but  one 
slave  and  she,  a  domestic,  voluntarily  remained  a 
servant  and  member  of  his  family  until  her  death 
long  after  the  war. 

These  are  all  historical  facts  duly  recorded  in 
the  papers  of  the  Virginia  Historical  Society,  and 
in  the  private  correspondence  of  the  accomplished 
author  of  "Virginia's  Attitude  Towards  Slavery 
and  Secession,"  Mr.  B.  B.  Munford. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      67 

So  much  for  the  Southern  leaders.  As  to  the 
rank  and  file  of  that  glorious  army  which  fought 
as  never  men  fought,  unfed,  unclothed  and  un 
paid,  and  wrote  the  title  of  American  manhood 
and  valor  and  patriotism  as  high  on  the  scroll  of 
fame  as  was  ever  reached  by  any  soldiery  in  the 
records  of  the  world's  history,  it  is  a  well  au 
thenticated  fact  that  perhaps  four-fifths,  and  cer 
tainly  three-fourths  of  them  never  owned  a  slave. 

Dr.  Hunter  McGuire,  in  his  admirable  work 
"The  Confederate  Cause  and  Conduct  of  the  War," 
says  of  the  famous  "Stonewall  Brigade"  whose 
glorious  deeds  and  wonderful  achievements  in  de 
fence  of  Southern  rights  sent  a  thrill  of  wonder 
and  admiration  throughout  the  world:  "I  knew 
every  man  in  it,  for  I  belonged  to  it  for  a  long 
time,  and  I  know  that  I  am  in  proper  bounds  when 
I  assert  that  there  was  not  one  soldier  in  thirty 
who  owned,  or  ever  expected  to  own  a  slave." 

Of  the  Southern  people,  described  by  our  aboli 
tionist  slanderers  and  traducers  as  a  community 
of  "Slaveholders,"  "Slavebreeders"  and  "Slave- 
dealers,"  Professor  Hart,  of  Harvard  University, 
in  his  book  "Slavery  and  Abolition,"  says  that 
"Out  of  twelve  million  five  hundred  thousand  per 
sons  in  the  slaveholding  communities  in  1860,  only 
about  one  in  thirty-three  was  a  slaveholder." 

The  historian,  Rhodes,  in  his  "History  of  the 
United  States,"  records  that  after  three  years  of 
bloody  war,  President  Davis  said  to  Lincoln's  rep 
resentatives  in  conference :  "We  are  not  fighting 
for  slavery.  We  are  fighting  for  independence. 
Say  to  Mr.  Lincoln  for  me  that  I  shall,  at  any 
time,  be  pleased  to  receive  proposals  for  peace  on 


68  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

the  basis  of  our  independence.  It  will  be  useless 
to  approach  me  with  any  other."  And  on  a  former 
occasion  he  had  declared :  "All  we  ask  is  to  be  let 
alone — that  those  who  never  held  power  over  us 
shall  not  now  attempt  our  subjugation  by  arms." 

Away,  then,  with  the  preposterous  and  malic 
ious  charge  that  the  South  went  to  war  to  perpet 
uate  and  extend  the  institution  of  slavery!  Still, 
the  cry  went  forth  from  the  abolition  press,  and 
was  accepted  as  truth  by  the  uninformed  masses 
of  the  European  nations  that  the  chief,  if  not  the 
only  business  of  Virginia  gentlemen  was  the  rais 
ing  of  slaves,  like  cattle,  to  be  sold  to  the  more 
Southern  markets. 

How  Virginia  loved  the  Union  that  she  had  done 
more  than  any  other  State  to  create ;  how  she  clun? 
to  it  to  the  last  and  labored  to  preserve  it  until 
"the  last  argument  was  exhausted"  is  now  so  well 
known  to  the  world  that  it  would  be  superfluous  to 
revert  to  it,  but  for  the  purpose  of  putting  the 
facts  in  condensed  and  convenient  form  into  the 
hands  of  our  children  and  children's  children  to 
the  end  that  they  may  imbibe  with  the  rudiments 
of  their  education  the  great  truths  of  the  grand 
and  noble  struggle  their  fathers  made  to  "trans 
mit  unshorn"  to  them  the  priceless  rights  of  self- 
government  handed  down  to  us  and  them  by  their 
forefathers  of  the  Revolution. 

The  historian,  Rhodes,  says :  "Virginia,  whose 
share  in  forming  the  Union  had  been  greater  than 
that  of  any  other  one  State,  was  loath  to  see  that 
great  work  shattered,  and  now  made  a  supreme 
effort  to  save  it."1 


iHistory  United  States,  Rhodes,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  290. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


^  On  the  7th  of  January,  1861,  after  South  Caro 
lina  had  seceded,  and  it  was  evident  all  the  Cotton 
States,  unless  prompt  measures  were  taken  to 
effect  a  compromise,  would  soon  follow  her  ex 
ample,  the  Legislature  of  Virginia  was  called  in 
extra  session.  In  his  message  to  that  body  Gov 
ernor  Letcher,  after  plainly  and  fully  setting  forth 
and  explaining  the  dangerous  and  perplexing 
problems  confronting  the  State  and  the  country, 
said :  "The  condition  of  our  country  at  this  time 
excites  the  most  serious  fears  for  the  perpetuation 
of  the  Union.  Surely,  no  people  have  been  blessed 
as  we  have  been,  and  it  is  melancholy  to  think  that 
all  is  now  about  to  be  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  pas 
sion.  If  the  judgments  of  men  were  consulted,  if 
the  admonitions  of  their  consciences  were  respect 
ed,  the  Union  would  yet  be  saved  from  over 
throw."1  But  while  giving  expression  to  his  deep 
devotion  to  the  Union,  he  did  not  fail  to  declare  in 
unmistakable  terms  his  belief  in  the  right  of  seces 
sion.  He  reviewed  fully  and  dispassionately  the 
persistent  action  of  the  abolition  element  of  the 
North,  which,  for  two  generations,  had  been  un 
compromising  and  unceasing  in  their  assaults  on 
the  Constitutional  rights  of  the  South  upon  ques 
tions  relating  to  slavery  and  State  Government. 
He  discouraged  the  plan  of  calling  a  State  Con 
vention,  and  proposed  instead  that  Commissioners 
be  sent  to  the  Legislatures  of  the  several  Northern 

ijournal  of  Virginia  House  of  Delegates,  1861. 


70  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

States  that  had  enacted  laws  repugnant  to  the 
rights  guaranteed  by  the  Federal  Constitution,  and 
to  request  and  urge  their  repeal,  and  that  similar 
messengers  be,  also,  dispatched  to  the  Legislatures 
of  the  slaveholding  States  to  inquire  and  ascertain 
the  exact  character  and  requirements  of  the  de 
mands  and  guarantees  they  deemed  necessary  to 
protect  their  rights  and  interests  under  the  Con 
stitution.  Following  the  spirit,  but  modifying  the 
plan  proposed  by  the  Governor,  the  General  As 
sembly  adopted  resolutions  inviting  all  such  States 
of  the  Union  "as  are  willing  to  unite  with  Vir 
ginia  in  an  earnest  effort  to  adjust  the  present  un 
happy  controversies  to  appoint  commissioners  to 
meet  on  the  Fourth  day  of  February,  1861,  in  the 
City  of  Washington,  similar  Commissioners  ap 
pointed  by  Virginia."1  The  same  resolutions  also 
provided  for  the  appointment  of  a  Commissioner 
to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  and  another 
Commissioner  to  South  Carolina,  and  such  other 
States  as  may  have  seceded  in  the  meantime,  to 
urge  and  entreat  them  to  abstain  from  any  further 
action  such  as  might  produce  a  conflict  of  arms 
between  the  seceding  States  and  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  pending  the  action  of  the 
proposed  Peace  Commissioners. 

The  preamble  to  the  resolutions  providing  for 
the  Peace  Conference  declared  that:  "Whereas, 
it  is  the  deliberate  opinion  of  the  General  As 
sembly  of  Virginia  that,  unless  the  unhappy  con 
troversy  that  now  divides  the  States  of  this  Con 
federacy  shall  be  satisfactorily  adjusted,  a  perma- 

iJoMrnal  of  House  of  Delegates,  Extra  Session  1861. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      71 

nent  dissolution  of  the  Union  is  inevitable,  and  the 
General  Assembly  is  desirous  of  employing  every 
reasonable  means  to  avert  so  dire  a  calamity."1 

But,  echoing  the  sentiment  expressed  in  the 
Governor's  message,  both  Houses  of  the  General 
Assembly,  with  practical  unanimity,  adopted  reso 
lutions  declaring  that  the  Government  of  a  Union 
formed  by  the  consent  of  all  the  States  had  no 
right  to  make  war  upon  any  of  its  members,  and 
with  regard  to  the  States  which  had  already  seced 
ed,  or  might  secede,  "We  are  unalterably  opposed 
to  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment  to  coerce  the  same  into  reunion  or  sub 
mission,  and  that  we  will  resist  the  same  by  all 
means  in  our  power." 

Twenty  States  responded  to  Virginia's  call  and 
sent  representatives  to  the  Peace  Conference 
which  met  in  Washington  on  February  4,  1861. 
Rhodes  says  in  the  third  volume  of  his  History  of 
the  United  States :  "The  historical  significance  of 
the  Peace  Convention  consists  in  the  evidence  it 
affords  of  the  attachment  of  the  Border  Slave 
States  to  the  Union."  The  spirit  of  love  and  ven 
eration  for  the  Government  established  by  our 
ancestors,  and  our  deep  yearning  for  the  restora 
tion  of  peace  and  amicable  relations  between  the 
sections  were  beautifully  and  feelingly  expressed 
in  the  utterances  and  declarations  and  appeals 
made  by  Virginia's  representatives.  Ex-President 
John  Tyler,  who  was  chosen  to  preside  over  the 
deliberations  of  the  Conference,  said  in  his  address 
on  assuming  the  chair:  "The  voice  of  Virginia 

ijournal  House  of  Delegates,   Extra  Session   1861. 


72  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

has  invited  her  co-states  to  meet  her  in  counsel. 
In  the  initiation  of  this  Government  that  same 
voice  was  heard  and  complied  with,  and  the  result 
ing  seventy-odd  years  have  fully  attested  the  wis 
dom  of  the  decision  then  adopted.  Our  god-like 
fathers  created!  We  have  to  preserve.  They 
built  up  through  their  wisdom  and  patriotism 
monuments  which  have  eternized  their  names. 
You  have  before  you,  gentlemen,  a  task  equally 
grand,  equally  sublime,  and  quite  as  full  of  glory 
and  immortality;  you  have  to  snatch  from  ruin 
a  grand  and  glorious  Confederation,  to  preserve 
the  Government  and  to  renew  and  invigorate  the 
Constitution."1  Hon.  William  C.  Rives,  ex-United 
States  Senator  and  once  Minister  to  France,  said : 
"Mr.  President,  something  must  be  done  to  save 
the  country,  to  relieve  these  apprehensions,  and  to 
restore  a  broken  confidence.  Virginia  steps  in 
to  arrest  the  country  in  its  progress  to  ruin.  Sir, 
I  have  had  some  experience  in  revolutions  in  an 
other  hemisphere,  in  revolutions  produced  by  the 
same  causes  that  are  now  operating  among  us. 
I  have  seen  the  pavements  of  Paris  covered  and 
the  gutters  running  with  fraternal  blood.  God 
forbid  I  should  see  this  horrid  picture  repeated  in 
my  own  country — and  yet  it  will  be,  Sir,  if  we 
listen  to  the  counsel  urged  here."2 

Mr.  George  W.  Summers,  another  of  Virginia's 
representative  sons,  commenced  his  speech  with 
an  emotion  too  deep  for  utterance:  "Mr.  Presi 
dent,  my  heart  is  full!  I  cannot  approach  the 

journal  of  Peace  Convention,  p.   14. 
2Journal  of  Peace  Convention,  p.   135. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      73 

great  issues  with  which  we  are  dealing  with  be 
coming  coolness  and  deliberation !  Sir !  I  love  this 
Union.  The  man  does  not  live  who  entertains  a 
higher  respect  for  this  Government  than  I  do. 
I  know  its  history — I  know  how  it  was  established. 
There  is  not  an  incident  in  its  history  that  is  not 
precious  to  me.  I  do  not  wish  to  survive  its  dis 
solution."1 

But  all  was  unavailing.  The  destructive  ele 
ment  in  all  the  Northern  States  which  sent  dele 
gates  to  the  Conference  had  seen  to  it  that  none 
should  be  sent  but  those  who  were  pledged  to  carry 
out  the  predetermined  plan  of  the  fanatical  war 
party ;  or  if  any  patriotic  and  reasonable  men  were 
sent,  as  some  undoubtedly  were,  they  should  be  in 
such  a  minority  as  to  be  easily  voted  down,  over 
ruled  and  ignored.  And  thus  all  reason,  every 
argument  and  every  pathetic  appeal  for  peace  and 
reconciliation  were  met  by  cold  disdain,  sneering 
rebuff  or  positive  insult.  A  single  incident  will 
suffice  to  show  the  spirit  in  which  all  of  Virginia's 
advances  and  overtures  for  peace  and  amity  were 
met.  Senator  Chandler,  of  Michigan,  familiarly 
referred  to  as  "Old  Zack  Chandler,"  and  who  dur 
ing  the  years  of  blood  and  horror  that  followed, 
succeeded  by  the  darker  days  of  Reconstruction, 
became  known  to  fame,  or  infamy  as  "The  Great 
Michigander,"  wrote  to  the  Governor  of  his  State : 
"Dear  Governor,  Bingham  and  myself  telegraphed 
you  on  Saturday,  at  the  request  of  Massachusetts 
and  New  York,  to  send  delegates  to  the  Peace  or 
Compromise  Congress.  They  admit  now  that  we 

1Journal  of  Peace  Convention,  p.   15. 


74  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

were  right  and  they  were  wrong ;  that  no  Republi 
can  State  should  have  sent  delegates ;  but  they  are 
here  now  and  cannot  get  away.  The  whole  thing 
was  gotten  up  against  my  judgment  and  advice, 
and  will  end  in  thin  smoke.  Some  of  the  manu 
facturing  States  think  that  a  fight  would  be  awful. 
Without  a  little  bloodletting  this  Union  will  not, 
in  my  estimation,  be  worth  a  curse."1 

And  that  was  the  spirit  that  dominated  the  rul 
ing  faction  of  the  Northern  people,  and  drove  the 
conservative  element  before  it  with  a  whip  of 
scorpions.  The  Black  Republican  party  was  fully 
bent  and  determined  on  war,  and  nothing  but  war 
and  "bloodletting"  would  satisfy  it. 

Thus  the  deliberations  of  the  Peace  Conference 
came  to  naught,  and  the  great  and  vital  objects  for 
which  the  people  of  Virginia  had  called  their  coun 
trymen  to  counsel  were  met  and  checkmated,  and 
doomed  to  go  down  in  history  as  unachieved  and 
overthrown  by  a  wild  and  reckless  spirit  of  un 
reasoning  fanaticism. 


journal  of  Peace  Convention,  1861,  p.  461;  Logic  of  History,  p.  138. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


The  General  Assembly  of  Virginia,  which  pro 
posed  and  brought  about  the  Peace  Conference, 
also  adopted  a  resolution  providing  for  the  calling 
of  a  State  Convention  to  consider  and  take  suit 
able  action  on  the  great  problems  of  the  hour,  and 
the  dangers  that  menaced  and  threatened  the  peace 
and  the  very  existence  of  the  State  and  the  Union. 
This  body  became  known  in  history  as  "The  Seces 
sion  Convention,"  a  misnomer,  as  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  it  was  called  as  a  last  resort  to  find 
honorable  means,  if  possible,  to  avoid  secession. 

So  careful  were  the  movers  and  promoters  of 
the  call  to  guard  against  the  danger  and  possibili 
ty  of  an  irresponsible  body  of  m^n  clothed  with 
untrammeled  power  carrying  the  State  out  of  the 
Union  under  the  promptings  of  the  wild  excite 
ment  and  passion  that  were  sweeping  over  the 
country  and  shaking  the  Government  from  its 
foundations,  that  it  was  provided  in  the  act  that 
the  people  of  Virginia,  in  selecting  delegates  to  the 
Convention,  should  declare,  by  a  separate  vote, 
whether  or  not  the  action  of  that  body  should  be 
referred  back  to  the  people  for  ratification  or  re 
jection,  thus  jealously  reserving  to  the  people  the 
right  and  power  to  go  to  the  polls  and  calmly  de 
cide  whether  or  not  the  State  should  withdraw 
from  the  Union. 

It  was  a  moment  pregnant  with  the  most  mo 
mentous  and  f arreaching  consequences  to  the  State 
and  the  country  at  large.  Seven  States  had  al- 


76  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

ready  seceded,  and  the  remaining  seven  of  the 
Southern  group,  with  anxious  eyes  fixed  on  Vir 
ginia,  were  waiting  to  see  what  action  would  be 
taken  by  the  old  Mother  of  States  and  Statesmen, 
hoping  thereby  to  shape  their  own  for  the  ultimate 
good  of  all.  Had  Virginia  at  that  moment  taken 
the  final  step  and  seceded  she  would  undoubtedly 
have  been  followed  in  quick  succession  by  North 
Carolina,  Tennessee,  Arkansas,  Missouri,  Ken 
tucky  and  Maryland,  as  was  done  by  the  first  three 
named  when  she  did  finally  withdraw. 

The  commanding  and  determining  influence  of 
Virginia  in  the  great  questions  of  the  hour  was  as 
well  recognized  and  understood  in  the  North  as 
elsewhere.  William  H.  Seward  wrote  from  Wash 
ington  :  "The  election  in  Virginia  tomorrow  prob 
ably  determines  whether  all  the  Slave  States  will 
take  the  attitude  of  disunion.  Everybody  around 
me  thinks  that  that  will  make  the  separation  ir 
retrievable  and  involve  us  in  a  flagrant  Civil 
War."1 

Charles  Francis  Adams  has  described  the  in 
tense  interest  centered  on  the  Virginia  election 
thus :  "I  well  remember  that  day — gray,  overcast, 
wintry — which  succeeded  the  Virginia  election. 
Then  living  in  Boston,  a  young  man  of  twenty- 
five,  I  shared — as  who  did  not — in  the  common 
deep  depression  and  intense  anxiety.  Virginia 
speaking  against  secession  had  emitted  no  uncer 
tain  sound.  It  was  as  if  a  weight  had  been  taken 
off  the  mind  of  every  one."2 

*Lee  at  Appomattox,  C.   F.  Adams,  p.  403. 
-'Lee  at  Appomattox,  Chas.   F.  Adams,  p.  402. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      77 

The  election  for  delegates  to  the  Convention  was 
held  on  February  4,  1861.  Never  before  had  the 
people  of  Virginia — the  undivided,  unpartitioned 
Old  Dominion,  before  the  hand  of  the  destroyer 
had  been  laid  upon  her  fair  domain  with  an  atroci 
ty  as  black  as  that  laid  upon  dismembered  Poland, 
— never  before  had  her  people  been  summoned  to 
an  election  so  fraught  with  such  fateful  import 
ance  to  the  State  and  the  Union.  Stirred  by  the 
fervor  of  the  campaign  and  the  magnitude  of  the 
issues  at  stake,  around  the  polls  that  day  "the 
grower  of  wheat  from  the  banks  of  the  Potomac 
met  the  planter  of  tobacco  from  the  distant  Roa- 
noke,  and  the  tiller  of  corn  who  greets  the  first 
beams  of  the  morning  sun  from  the  golden  waves 
of  the  broad  Atlantic,  hailed  his  brother  who 
catches  his  last  parting  ray  as  reflected  from  the 
glassy  bosom  of  the  beautiful  Ohio." 

A  quiet,  law-abiding,  agricultural  people,  deep 
ly  devoted  to  their  State  and  the  Union,  and  plead 
ing  only  for  peace! 

The  State  was  divided  into  a  hundred  and  fifty- 
two  election  districts.  The  candidates  presenting 
themselves  for  the  suffrages  of  the  people  were 
ranged  in  three  classes — unconditional  Secession 
ists,  unconditional  Union  Men  and  Compromise 
men,  that  is,  men  opposed  to  secession  and  in 
favor  of  the  Union  provided  the  Federal  authori 
ties  did  not  resort  to  armed  coercion  to  bring  back 
the  States  already  seceded. 

The  returns  from  the  polls  showed  that  of  the 
delegates  elected  to  the  Convention  the  men  of  the 
second  and  third  classes  were  in  an  overwhelming 


78  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

majority.  On  the  question  of  submitting  the  work 
of  the  Convention  to  the  people  for  ratification  or 
rejection  the  vote  stood  100,536  for  submission 
and  45,161  against  it,  thus  declaring  to  the  world 
that  "on  the  issues  as  then  made  up"  Virginia 
refused  to  secede.  Charles  Francis  Adams,  in  his 
book  "Lee  at  Appomattox,"  says:  "Thus  be  it 
always  remembered,  Virginia  did  not  take  her 
place  in  the  Secession  movement  because  of  the 
election  of  an  antislavery  President.  She  did  not 
raise  her  hand  against  the  National  Government 
from  mere  love  of  any  peculiar  institution,  or  a 
wish  to  protect  or  perpetuate  it.  The  ground  of 
her  final  action  was  of  wholly  another  nature,  and 
of  a  nature  far  more  creditable."1 

The  Convention  met  in  the  Hall  of  the  House 
of  Delegates  on  February  13,  1861.  The  vener 
able  John  Janney,  a  Union  man,  was  chosen  to  pre 
side  over  its  deliberations.  His  election  was  se 
cured  by  the  harmonious  action  of  the  different 
shades  of  Union  sentiment  and  feeling  which  dom 
inated  the  body.  On  taking  the  chair  the  Presi 
dent  said:  "It  is  now  seventy-three  years  since 
a  Convention  of  the  people  of  Virginia  were  as 
sembled  in  this  Hall  to  ratify  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  one  of  the  chief  objects  of  which 
was  to  consolidate — not  the  Government, — but  the 
Union  of  the  States.  Causes  which  have  passed 
and  are  daily  passing  into  history  which  will  set 
its  seal  upon  them,  have  brought  the  Constitu 
tion  and  the  Union  into  imminent  peril,  and  Vir 
ginia  has  come  to  the  rescue.  It  is  what  the  whole 

!Lee  at  Appomattox,  p.  403. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      79 

country  expected  of  her.  Gentlemen,  there  is  a 
flag  which,  for  nearly  a  century,  has  been  borne  in 
triumph  through  the  battle  and  the  breeze,  and 
now  floats  over  this  Capitol,  on  which  there  is  a 
star  representing  this  ancient  Commonwealth,  and 
my  earnest  prayer,  in  which  I  know  every  mem 
ber  of  this  body  will  unite,  is  that  it  may  remain 
there  forever,  provided,  always,  that  its  lustre  is 
untarnished."1 

Thus  was  sounded  the  keynote  of  the  patriotic 
spirit  with  which  Virginia  approached  and  at 
tempted  to  solve,  for  the  good  of  all,  the  moment 
ous  problems  that  confronted  her  and  the  country ; 
and  from  that  day  until  the  17th  of  April  the  op 
posing  forces  of  Secession  and  Union  faced  each 
other  in  ardent  and  earnest  debate. 

It  at  once  became  apparent  that  the  strongest, 
if  not  the  controlling,  force  in  shaping  the  final 
action  of  the  Convention  would  be  the  policy 
adopted  by  the  newly  elected  Federal  Administra 
tion  towards  the  already  seceded  States.  Vir 
ginia,  in  the  recent  election,  had  spoken  with  no 
uncertain  voice  against  secession;  but  six  Gulf 
States,  with  South  Carolina  at  their  head,  had  al 
ready  seceded  and  organized  a  Confederacy  with 
its  Government  established  at  Montgomery;  and 
Virginia  would  never  consent  to,  or  aid  in,  the 
unrighteous  and  unconstitutional  attempt  to  sub 
jugate  and  coerce  these  States  by  force  of  arms. 
Thus  it  became  a  question,  not  of  slavery,  nor  of 
the  wisdom  of  secession,  but  of  the  right  and 
power  of  the  Federal  Government  under  the  Con- 

ijournal  of  the  Convention,  1861,  p.  8. 


80  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

stitution  to  coerce  a  sovereign  State  which  had 
merely  exercised  her  undeniable  and,  until  now, 
unquestioned  right  to  resume  the  powers  by  her 
voluntarily  delegated  to  that  Government. 

President  Buchanan  had  submitted  to  Congress 
the  question  of  dealing  with  the  seceding  States, 
but  Congress  had  taken  no  action  nor  expressed 
officially  any  purpose  or  plan  of  doing  so. 

Thus  all  eyes  were  turned  upon  the  incoming 
President,  who,  as  we  have  already  seen,  was 
elected  on  a  platform  inspired  by  that  "Abolition 
ism  in  the  North,  which,  trained  in  the  school  of 
Garrison  and  Phillips,  and  affecting  to  regard  the 
Constitution  as  'A  league  with  Hell  and  a  covenant 
with  Death'  had,  with  steady  and  untiring  hate, 
sought  a  disruption  of  the  Union  as  the  best  and 
surest  means  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  aboli 
tion  of  slavery  in  the  Southern  States."1 

The  country  stood  with  bated  breath,  and  the 
supreme  question  of  the  hour  was  what  policy  will 
he  adopt,  what  line  of  action  will  he  follow  with 
regard  to  the  seceded  States:  Stephen  A.  Doug 
las,  the  defeated  candidate  of  the  Northern  wing 
of  the  Democratic  party,  writing  of  the  Republi 
can  conspirators,  the  leaders  of  the  Lincoln  party, 
said  in  a  letter  dated  February  2,  1861:  "They 
are  bold,  determined  men.  They  are  striving  to 
break  up  the  Union  under  the  pretense  of  preserv 
ing  it.  They  are  struggling  to  overthrow  the  Con 
stitution,  while  professing  undying  attachment  to 
it  and  a  willingness  to  make  any  sacrifice  to  main 
tain  it.  They  are  trying  to  plunge  the  country 

iSpeech  of  Geo.  W.  Brent  in  the  Virginia  Convention,  Mar.  8,  1861. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      81 

into  a  cruel  war  as  the  surest  means  of  destroying 
the  Union  upon  the  plea  of  enforcing  the  laws  and 
protecting  public  property." 

Such  monumental  duplicity  and  hypocrisy  could 
not  be  better  exemplified  than  in  the  blatant  utter 
ances  and  subsequent  actions  of  the  abolition 
shriekers  who  had  not  then  been  initiated  into  the 
underground  workings  of  the  real  Republican  lead 
ers  and  conspirators  with  William  H.  Seward  at 
their  head. 

After  Lincoln  was  elected  and  the  Gulf  States 
were  threatening  to  follow  South  Carolina  in  with 
drawing  from  the  Union,  Wendell  Phillips,  the 
great  High  Priest  of  New  England  disunionism, 
denouncing  Lincoln  as  "a  huckster  in  politics," 
and  "a  slavehound  from  Illinois"  and,  condemning 
the  war  he  proposed  to  wage  against  the  seceding 
States,  said :  "Here  are  a  series  of  States  girding 
the  Gulf  which  think  they  should  have  an  inde 
pendent  government;  they  have  a  right  to  decide 
that  question  without  appealing  to  you  or  to  me. 
Standing  with  the  principles  of  '76  behind  us,  who 
can  deny  them  that  right?  Abraham  Lincoln  has 
no  right  to  a  soldier  in  Fort  Sumter."  And  after 
those  States  seceded,  he  cried  frantically  in  an 
other  speech :  "I  have  labored  for  nineteen  years 
to  dissolve  the  Union,  and  now  success  has  come 
at  last.  Let  the  South  go !  Let  her  go  with  flags 
flying  and  trumpets  blowing !  Give  her  her  forts, 
her  arsenals  and  her  sub-treasuries!  Speed  the 
parting  guest!  All  hail  disunion!  Beautiful  on 
the  mountains  are  the  feet  of  them  who  bring  the 
glad  tidings  of  disunion."1 

iSpeeches,  Lectures  and  Letters,  Wendell  Phillips. 


82  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

And  yet,  after  Lincoln  and  Seward  had  "let  slip 
the  dogs  of  war"  this  same  Phillips,  and  his  fol 
lowers  were  loudest  and  bitterest  in  hurling  at 
the  South  the  epithets  of  "Rebel"  and  "Traitor." 

No  man  who  saw  as  did  the  writer,  though  a 
boy,  the  birth  of  the  Republican  party;  and  no 
man  or  woman  who  has  watched  its  workings  and 
followed  its  history  can  doubt  for  a  moment  that, 
from  the  day  of  its  organization  in  1854  to  the 
hour  Fort  Sumter  was  fired  on,  Republicans  had 
striven  might  and  main  to  dissolve  the  Union. 
Not  a  man  in  the  party,  as  at  first  organized,  re 
spected  the  Flag.  Both  the  Flag  and  the  Union 
were  scorned  and  hated  by  the  Republicans  of  the 
antebellum  regime.  The  New  York  Tribune,  an 
acknowledged  organ  of  the  Black  Republican 
party,  habitually  adorned  its  columns  with  such 
irreverent  and  disgusting  doggerel  as  this : 

"Tear  down  the  flaunting  lie, 
Half-mast  the  starry  flag, 
Insult  no  sunny,  sky 
With  hate's  polluted  rag." 

For  what  purpose,  and  by  what  means  these 
original  Union  haters  and  Flag  insulters  were  led 
to  turn  a  complete  summersault  and  launch 
against  the  retiring  South  all  the  avalanche  of 
long-standing  hate  and  venom  they  had  formerly 
heaped  upon  the  Union  and  the  Flag  will  be  re 
vealed  by  an  examination  of  their  own  party  rec- 
prds  and  correspondence. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      83 

After  leaving  his  family  in  Philadelphia  and  in 
disguise  entering  Washington  in  the  night,  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  was  inaugurated  President  of  the 
United  States  on  the  4th  of  March,  1861.  His 
inaugural  address,  which  was  eagerly  waited  for 
in  the  hope  that  it  would  reveal  the  policy  of  the 
incoming  Administration,  and  thus  relieve  the 
strain  of  uncertainty  and  suspense  under  which 
the  country  labored,  and  set  at  rest  the  fears  of 
the  South  awakened  by  the  bitterness  and  violence 
of  the  Presidential  campaign,  was  couched  in  such 
ambiguous  language  and  expressed  in  terms  of 
such  studied  and  artful  evasion  that  the  public 
mind  was  left  in  as  great  a  state  of  uncertainty 
and  perplexity  as  before. 

On  the  one  hand,  in  what  appeared  to  be  plain 
and  unmistakable  language,  he  gave  assurance 
that  the  Federal  Government  would  respect  the 
rights  of  States  and  individuals  in  regard  to 
slavery,  and  that  no  interest  or  section  would  be 
disturbed  in  any  Constitutional  right ;  while  on  the 
other  hand,  his  utterances  and  outgivings  on  the 
great  question  of  his  policy  in  regard  to  the  coer 
cion  of  the  seceded  States  were  so  evasive  and  un 
certain  as  to  be  plainly  susceptible  of  different 
and  opposite  constructions. 

In  this  atmosphere  of  uncertainty  and  suspense 
the  Virginia  Convention  continued  for  nearly  six 
weeks  to  wrestle  with  the  opposing  questions  of 
Union  and  secession.  Meanwhile,  the  Government 
at  Washington  had  done  nothing,  and  it  was  a  fact 
fully  recognized  and  understood  that  the  Presi 
dent  was  as  a  lump  of  potter's  clay  in  the  hands  of 


84  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

the  shrewd  and  able  conspirators  by  whom  he  was 
surrounded. 

The  great  body  of  the  Northern  people,  as  all 
the  records  plainly  show,  were  averse  and  opposed 
to  making  war  on  the  South  on  the  question  of 
slavery.  A  new  issue,  then,  must  be  found  or  in 
vented  on  which  the  country  could  be  dragged  into 
a  bloody  and  destructive  war.  Nearly  a  month 
had  passed  and  not  a  step  had  been  taken  in  that 
direction.  But  tremendous  and  bloody  schemes 
were  brooding  in  the  brain  of  William  H.  Seward, 
who,  as  Secretary  of  State,  was  recognized  as  the 
moving  spirit  and  brains  of  the  Administration. 

About  the  first  of  April,  to  spur  Lincoln  into 
action,  Seward  wrote  a  carefully  prepared  paper 
entitled  "Some  Thoughts  for  the  President's  Con 
sideration."  In  this  paper  Seward  said:  "We 
are  at  the  end  of  a  month's  administration  and  yet 
without  a  policy.  This,  however,  is  not  culpable, 
it  has  been  unavoidable.  But  further  delay  to 
adopt  and  prosecute  our  policy,  for  both  domestic 
and  foreign  affairs,  would  not  only  bring  scandal 
on  the  Administration,  but  danger  on  the  country. 
For  the  policy  at  home,  my  system  is  built  on  this 
idea  as  a  ruling  one :  That  we  must  change  the 
question  before  the  public  from  one  upon  slavery, 
or  about  slavery,  to  a  question  of  Union  or  Dis- 
Union.  In  other  words,  from  what  would  be  re 
garded  as  a  party  question  to  one  of  Patriotism 
or  Union.  The  occupation  and  evacuation  of  Fort 
Sumter,  although  not  in  fact  a  slavery  or  party 
question,  is  so  regarded.  Witness  the  temper 
manifested  by  the  Republicans  of  the  Northern 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      85 

States  and  the  Union  men  of  the  South.  For  the 
rest,  I  would  simultaneously  defend  and  reinforce 
all  the  forts  in  the  Gulf  and  have  the  Navy  recalled 
from  foreign  stations  to  be  prepared  for  a  block 
ade.  Put  the  island  of  Key  West  under  Martial 
Law.  I  would  maintain  every  fort  and  Federal 
possession  in  the  South.  This  will  raise  distinctly 
the  question  of  Union  or  Disunion."1  This  letter 
was  intended  for  Lincoln's  eye  only,  and  was  never 
laid  before  the  Cabinet  as  far  as  the  records  show. 
Lincoln  kept  the  matter  to  himself,  but  followed 
the  shrewd  and  cunning  advice  given,  to  drop  his 
party's  darling  issue  of  slavery  and,  in  its  place, 
raise  the  cry  of  "Save  the  Union."  Both  Lincoln 
and  Seward  were  creatures  of  the  Republican 
party,  put  in  office  by  Black  Republican  votes,  and 
yet,  at  the  very  outset  of  their  official  career,  they 
spurned  their  party's  most  cherished  issue,  slav 
ery,  and  put  in  its  place  the  Union  and  the  Flag, 
both  of  which  their  party  had  always  despised 
and  hated  and  denounced  and  abused  from  a  thous 
and  rostrums. 

Soon  after  the  organization  of  the  Virginia 
Convention  a  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  con 
sisting  of  twenty-one  members  was  appointed,  to 
which  should  be  referred  without  debate  all  mem 
orial  proposals  relating  to  the  secession  of  the 
State.  On  the  16th  of  March  the  report  of  that 
Committee  was  taken  up  for  consideration  by  the 
Convention.  The  majority  report,  signed  by  two- 
thirds  of  the  members,  described  and  deplored  the 
"present  distracted  condition  of  the  country"  and 

iHistory  of  the  Great  Civil  War,  Facts  and  Falsehoods,  pp.   154-5. 


86  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

earnestly  prayed  that  "An  adjustment  may  be 
reached  by  which  the  Union  may  be  preserved  in 
its  integrity;  and  peace,  prosperity  and  fraternal 
feeling  be  restored  throughout  the  land."  An 
other  section  declared  that:  "The  people  of  Vir 
ginia  recognize  the  American  principle  that  gov 
ernment  is  founded  on  the  consent  of  the  gov 
erned,  and  they  will  never  consent  that  the  Fed 
eral  power,  which  is  in  part  their  power,  shall  be 
exerted  for  the  purpose  of  subjugating  the  people 
of  the  seceded  States  to  the  Federal  authority."1 

The  minority  report  provided  for  the  immediate 
secession  of  Virginia.  This  was  defeated  by  a 
recorded  vote  of  forty-five  "yeas"  to  eighty-nine 
"nays."  The  majority  section  was  adopted  by  a 
vote  of  one  hundred  and  four  "yeas"  to  thirty-one 
"nays." 

Thus,  while  Virginia,  through  her  duly  elected 
representatives  in  Convention  assembled,  was  de 
termined  to  cling  to  the  Union  with  an  undying 
devotion  as  long  as  that  could  be  done  with  honor 
to  herself  and  justice  to  the  South,  yet  she,  and 
the  country  at  large,  were  left  utterly  in  doubt 
and  perplexity  by  the  inaction  of  the  Federal  Ad 
ministration  and  the  ambiguous  language  and 
veiled  expressions  of  the  President's  inaugural 
address.  This  general  state  of  uncertainty  was 
expressed  by  ex-President  Buchanan  in  a  letter 
dated  March  16,  1861,  in  which  he  said:  "Every 
day  affords  proof  of  the  absence  of  any  settled 
policy  or  harmonious  concert  of  action  in  the  ad 
ministration.  Seward,  Bates  and  Cameron  form 

ijournal  of  Virginia  Convention,   1861,  pp.   31-43. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      87 

one  wing;  Chase,  Wells,  Blair  the  opposite  wing; 
Smith  is  on  both  sides,  and  Lincoln  sometimes  on 
one,  sometimes  on  the  other.  There  has  been 
agreement  in  nothing.1 

In  this  aspect  of  the  situation  the  Virginia  Con 
vention  determined  to  send  Commissioners  to 
Washington  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  at  first 
hand  what  action,  if  any,  President  Lincoln  in 
tended  to  take  in  regard  to  the  seceded  States  and 
to  that  end  the  following  resolution  was  adopted 
on  the  8th  of  April:  "Whereas  in  the  opinion 
of  this  Convention  the  uncertainty  which  prevails 
in  the  public  mind  as  to  the  policy  which  the  Fed 
eral  Executive  intends  to  pursue  towards  the  se 
ceded  States  is  extremely  injurious  to  the  indus 
trial  and  commercial  interests  of  the  country, 
tends  to  keep  up  an  excitement  which  is  unfavor 
able  to  the  adjustment  of  pending  difficulties,  and 
threatens  a  disturbance  of  the  public  peace,  there 
fore, 

"Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  three  delegates 
be  appointed  by  this  Convention  to  wait  upon  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  present  to 
him  this  Preamble  and  Resolutions  and  respect 
fully  ask  him  to  communicate  to  this  Convention 
the  policy  which  the  Federal  Executive  intends  to 
pursue  in  regard  to  the  Confederate  States."2 

The  double  dealing,  duplicity  and  deceit  wilfully 
and  persistently  practiced  by  Lincoln  and  Seward 
in  their  pretended  negotiations  with  this  Commit 
tee  and,  also,  with  the  Commissioners  sent  by  the 

*Life  of  James  Buchanan,  Vol.  II,  p.  34. 
2Journal  of  Virginia  Convention,  p.  143. 


88  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

Confederate  Government  to  negotiate  a  peaceable 
settlement  of  all  matters  connected  with  the  Forts 
and  other  United  States  property  situated  within 
the  seceded  States,  will  go  down  in  history  as  a 
blot  on  the  diplomacy  of  a  government  claiming 
to  be  civilized  and  enlightened. 

The  Committee  appointed  by  the  Virginia  Con 
vention  consisted  of  William  B.  Preston,  A.  H.  H. 
Stuart  and  George  W.  Randolph.  The  results  of 
that  commission  are  detailed  by  Mr.  Stuart  in  the 
first  volume  of  Southern  Historical  Society  papers. 
On  page  452  he  says :  "I  remember  that  Lincoln 
used  this  homely  expression :  'If  I  recognize  the 
Southern  Confederacy  what  will  become  of  my 
revenue  ?  I  might  as  well  shut  up  housekeeping  at 
once.'  "  Still,  Mr.  Stuart,  assures  the  world  that 
"his  declarations  were  distinctly  pacific,  and  he 
expressly  disclaimed  all  purpose  of  war." 

Secretary  of  State  Seward  and  Attorney  Gen 
eral  Bates,  in  all  their  meetings  and  discussions 
with  the  Virginia  Committee,  were  equally  out 
spoken  and  apparently  sincere  in  their  assurances 
of  peace  and  the  amicable  views  and  intentions  of 
the  Administration.  At  the  same  moment  Lin 
coln's  proclamation  calling  for  an  army  of  seventy- 
five  thousand  men  to  subjugate  and  coerce  the 
Southern  States  had  been  written,  and  was  al 
ready  in  print;  and  the  same  train  that  brought 
the  Committee  back  to  Richmond  elated  with  the 
thought  of  reporting  to  the  Convention  the  cordial 
expressions  and  pacific  intentions,  as  they  thought:, 
of  the  Federal  Executive,  also  brought  Lincoln's 
proclamation,  calling  on  the  Governor  of  Virginia 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      89 

to  furnish  her  quota  of  the  army  intended  to  over 
throw  and  destroy  the  last  vestige  of  the  Consti 
tutional  rights  of  the  States. 

Mr.  Stuart  continues :  "This  proclamation  was 
carefully  withheld  from  us  and  we  knew  nothing 
of  it  until  Monday  morning  when  it  appeared  in 
the  Richmond  papers.  When  I  saw  it  at  break 
fast  I  thought  it  was  a  mischievous  hoax,  for  I 
could  not  believe  Lincoln  guilty  of  such  duplic 
ity."1 

And  the  same  course  of  deception  and  chicanery 
was  followed  by  Lincoln  and  his  advisers  in  their 
dealings  with  the  Commissioners  which,  as  before 
noted,  were  sent  to  Washington  by  the  Confeder 
ate  Government,  as  soon  as  that  Government  was 
organized,  to  bring  about  an  amicable  and  "speedy 
adjustment  of  all  questions  growing  out  of  the 
political  separation  upon  such  terms  as  the  re 
spective  interests,  geographical  contiguity  and 
future  welfare  of  the  two  nations  may  render 
necessary." 

President  Lincoln,  while  refusing  to  recognize 
the  Confederacy  by  treating  with  those  Commis 
sioners  as  the  representatives  of  an  independent 
government,  nevertheless,  entered  into  semi-of 
ficial  negotiations  with  them  upon  the  questions 
at  issue.  During  these  pretended  "negotiations" 
the  Confederate  Commissioners  were  kept  in 
Washington  week  after  week,  deceived  by  verbal 
promises  and  misleading  hopes  of  securing  in  the 
end  a  peaceable  and  satisfactory  adjustment  and 
settlement  of  all  the  complicated  interests  and 

iSouthern  Historical  Society's  Papers,  p.  452. 


90  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

claims  arising  out  of  the  separation  of  the  sec 
tions.  The  Commissioners  were  blandly  exhorted 
to  be  patient  and  trustful,  and  were  distinctly 
promised  by  Lincoln  and  Seward,  through  Judge 
Campbell,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  that  no  attempt  would  be  made  to  pro 
vision  or  reinforce  Fort  Sumter,  and  that  the 
garrison  should  be  withdrawn  and  the  Fort  evac 
uated  as  soon  as  the  necessary  arrangements  could 
be  made ;  the  Commissioners,  on  their  part,  agree 
ing  that,  while  such  arrangements  were  in  pro 
gress,  the  soldiers  of  the  garrison  should  have 
access  to  the  markets  of  Charleston  to  secure 
necessary  provisions. 

And  during  all  this  time  Lincoln  and  Seward 
were  secretly  planning,  organizing,  arming  and 
provisioning  one  of  the  most  stupendous  war  fleets 
ever  assembled  in  American  waters  to  make  a 
sudden  descent  on  Sumter  and,  thus,  inaugurate 
the  most  destructive  and  devastating  war  of  mod 
ern  times.  This  deception  was  kept  up  almost  to 
the  last  moment,  and  as  the  mock  negotiations 
dragged  on  from  day  to  day  and  no  move  was 
made  towards  the  promised  evacuation  of  Fort 
Sumter,  uneasiness  began  to  be  felt  by  the  Com 
missioners  and  the  Government  for  which  they 
were  acting,  and  Judge  Campbell  read  to  Mr. 
Seward  a  letter  which  he  had  written  to  President 
Davis  setting  forth  in  detail  the  agreement  en 
tered  into  by  Lincoln  and  the  Southern  Commis 
sioners.  Seward,  pointing  to  the  letter  in  Judge 
Campbell's  hand,  said :  "Before  that  letter  reaches 
its  destination  Fort  Sumter  will  be  evacuated." 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      91 

At  that  very  moment  his  gigantic  preparations 
to  reinforce  Sumter  were  nearing  completion ! 

Still,  the  days  dragged  on  and  grew  into  weeks 
and  the  Fort  was  not  evacuated.  Finally,  Judge 
Campbell,  urged  by  the  Commissioners  who  were 
losing  all  faith  in  such  promises,  and  all  patience 
with  such  dilatory  performances,  wrote  Seward 
a  letter  of  inquiry  and  remonstrance.  The  wiley 
and  unscrupulous  Secretary  telegraphed  his  an 
swer  in  a  single  laconic  sentence:  "Faith  as  to 
Sumter  fully  kept — wait  and  see." 

Six  days  after  that  astounding  assurance  was 
sent  the  great  "Relief  Squadron,  with  eleven  ships 
carrying  two  hundred  and  eighty-five  guns  and 
two  thousand  four  hundred  men,  was  sent  out 
from  New  York  and  Norfolk  with  orders  from 
the  authorities  at  Washington  to  reinforce  Fort 
Sumter,  peacefully,  if  permitted,  but  forcibly  if 
they  resist."1 

It  is  amply  proven  by  unquestioned  public 
records  and  published  "Speeches,  Letters  and 
State  Papers,"-  that  five  of  the  seven  members  of 
Lincoln's  Cabinet  were  opposed  to  the  expedition 
to  reinforce  Fort  Sumter,  and  advised  against  it. 
Even  William  II.  Seward,  the  closest,  ablest  and 
most  unscrupulous  of  his  advisers,  declared  in  a 
letter  addressed  to  the  President  that,  by  the  at 
tempt,  "We  will  have  inaugurated  a  civil  war  by 
our  own  act  without  adequate  object,  after  which 
reunion  will  be  hopeless,  at  least,  under  this  Ad 
ministration,  or  in  any  other  way  than  by  a  pop- 

iThe  War  Between  the  States,  Alex  Stephens. 
-Life  of  Lincoln,  Nicolay   &  Hay,   Vol.   II. 


92  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

ular  disavowal,  both  of  the  war  and  of  the  Admin 
istration  which  unnecessarily  commenced  it." 
Thus  did  this  wiley  conspirator  conceal,  not  only 
from  his  colleagues  in  the  Cabinet,  but,  as  it 
seems,  from  the  President  himself,  his  real  ob 
ject  in  fitting  out  the  great  expedition,  which 
object  will  appear  later. 

But  Lincoln  had  fully  determined  on  war  and 
nothing  could  swerve  or  dissuade  him  from  his 
purpose.  After  it  was  learned  that  the  great 
Relief  Squadron  had  actually  sailed  from  New 
York  and  Norfolk,  and  was  under  way  for  Char 
leston,  General  Beauregard,  in  order  to  prevent 
Fort  Sumter  being  reinforced  and  provisioned, 
opened  fire  upon  it  on  the  morning  of  the  12th  of 
April,  1861.  The  fire  was  returned  by  the  fort 
and  the  cannonade  was  kept  up  through  the  day. 
At  night  the  firing  from  the  fort  ceased,  but  was 
continued  by  General  Beauregard  through  the 
night.  On  the  following  morning  the  fort  re 
sumed  its  cannonade,  but  soon  it  appeared  that 
the  works  and  buildings  were  on  fire,  caused  by 
the  hot  shot  and  shell  thrown  into  it  by  the  Con 
federates.  Major  Anderson,  in  command,  ran  up 
a  signal  of  distress,  and  General  Beauregard  im 
mediately  sent  a  boat  offering  to  assist  in  putting 
out  the  fire,  but  before  it  reached  the  fort  Major 
Anderson  displayed  a  flag  of  truce. 

And  that  is  the  whole  story  of  the  famous  bom 
bardment  of  Fort  Sumter.  Not  a  single  man  was 
killed  on  either  side  during  the  engagement. 
After  the  surrender  of  the  fort,  General  Beaure 
gard  permitted  Major  Anderson  to  salute  the 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES       93 

United  States  ilag  with  fifty  guns  and,  in  doing 
this,  two  of  his  guns  burst  and  killed  four  men. 
It  is  an  astonishing  fact — so  regarded  at  the  time 
— that  the  Relief  Squadron  was  in  full  view  of 
the  harbor  long  before  the  action  terminated,  and 
could  easily  have  prevented  the  capitulation,  yet 
not  a  gun  was  fired,  or  a  movement  made  to  sup 
port  or  relieve  Major  Anderson  and  his  small  gar 
rison.  The  real  object  of  the  expedition  had  been 
accomplished.  The  South  had  been  driven  and 
forced,  in  self  defence,  to  "fire  on  the  flag"  and 
that  act  was  instantly  seized  upon  by  the  aboli 
tion  party,  and  adopted  as  the  grand  slogan  with 
which  to  "fire  the  Northern  heart." 

We  have  seen  how,  in  a  letter  intended  only  for 
the  President's  eye,  Seward  had  advised  and  im 
pressed  on  Lincoln  the  necessity  that  "We  must 
change  the  question  before  the  public  from  one 
about  slavery  to  a  question  of  Union,"  and  the 
Flag.  It  was  the  only  issue  on  which  they  could 
stir  the  masses  of  the  North  and  West  to  rush 
headlong  into  a  destructive  and  unprovoked  war 
upon  the  South.  And  we  now  see  how  successfully 
and  perfectly  that  arch  conspirator  had  worked 
out  his  diabolical  scheme  to  force  the  South  to 
strike  a  blow  in  defence  of  her  rights  at  Char 
leston. 

The  news  of  the  attack  on  Sumter  was  received 
with  demonstrations  of  delight  by  the  whole  Abol 
ition  element  of  New  England,  and  instantly  went 
up  the  cry  of  "The  Union"  and  "The  Flag."  Then 
began  the  work  of  "Working  up  the  Northern 
mind"  and  "Firing  the  Northern  heart."  By  con- 


94  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

cert  of  action  the  cry  was  shrieked  and  shouted 
everywhere  throughout  the  North  "The  Flag  has 
been  insulted,"  and  "The  Union  is  destroyed"  and 
the  very  people  who,  for  years  beyond  the  memory 
of  many  then  living,  had  labored  to  destroy  the 
Union  as  "a  mistake,"  "a  crime"  and  "a  league 
with  Hell,"  and  denounced  the  flag  as  "a  flaunting 
lie"  and  "a  polluted  rag,"  were  loudest  in  thunder 
ing  the  new-found  slogan :  "Save  the  Union  and 
Protect  the  Flag." 


CHAPTER  IX. 


The  action  of  Virginia  was  prompt  and  decisive. 
"The  time  had  come  when  she  must  either  level 
her  guns  on  her  Southern  sisters  or  make  her 
breast  their  shield."  In  reply  to  the  demand  for 
Virginia's  quota  of  the  seventy-five  thousand  men 
called  for  in  the  President's  proclamation,  Gov 
ernor  Letcher  said :  "I  have  only  to  say  that  the 
militia  of  Virginia  will  not  be  furnished  to  the 
powers  at  Washington  for  any  such  use  or  pur 
pose,  as  they  have  in  view.  Your  object  is  to  sub 
jugate  the  Southern  States,  and  the  requisition 
made  upon  me  for  such  an  object — in  my  judg 
ment  not  within  the  purview  of  the  Constitution 
or  the  Act  of  1795 — will  not  be  complied  with.  You 
have  chosen  to  inaugurate  Civil  War ;  and  having 
done  so  we  will  meet  you  in  a  spirit  as  determined 
as  the  Administration  has  exhibited  towards  the 
South."1  Similar  answers  were  returned  by  the 
Governors  of  North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Ken 
tucky,  Arkansas  and  Missouri,  all  of  which  States, 
as  before  said,  were  watching  and  waiting  for, 
and  were  largely  influenced  by,  the  action  of  Vir 
ginia.  Governor  Ellis,  of  North  Carolina,  though 
opposed  to  secession  as  Letcher  of  Virginia  orig 
inally  was,  telegraphed  to  Washington :  "I  can  be 
no  party  to  this  wicked  violation  of  the  laws  of 
this  country,  and  especially  to  this  war  which  is 
being  waged  upon  a  free  and  independent  peo 
ple." 

iGreeley's  American  Conflict,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  86. 


96  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

Governor  McGoffin,  of  Kentucky,  wrote  Lincoln 
that  Kentucky  would  "furnish  no  troops  for  the 
wicked  purpose  of  making  war  upon  the  States." 

Governor  Jackson  of  Missouri  replied:  "Your 
requisition,  in  my  judgment,  is  illegal,  unconsti 
tutional  and  revolutionary,  and  its  objects  in 
human  and  diabolical." 

On  April  17th  the  Virginia  Convention,  by  a 
vote  of  eighty-eight  "ayes"  to  fifty-five  "noes," 
adopted  an  Ordinance  of  Secession,  to  be  sub 
mitted  to  the  people  for  ratification  or  rejection  at 
a  special  election  to  be  held  on  the  23rd  of  May. 
At  that  election  the  Ordinance  of  Secession  was 
confirmed  by  a  popular  vote  of  128,884  for,  against 
32,134  opposed. 

In  the  closing  hours  of  the  Convention  "strong 
men  spoke  for  or  against  secession  with  sorrow 
ful  hearts  and  voices  trembling  with  emotion."1 
The  late  Mr.  B.  M.  Munford  in  his  admirable  book, 
"Virginia's  Attitude  Toward  Slavery  and  Seces 
sion,"  says,  "The  action  of  the  Convention  was 
the  logical  and  inevitable  result  of  the  President's 
proclamation.  There  had  never  been  any  doubt 
as  to  Virginia's  position.  With  all  her  loyalty  to 
the  Union,  she  had  repeatedly  declared  in  the  most 
authoritative  manner  her  opposition  to  the  coer 
cion  of  the  Cotton  States  and  her  determination 
to  resist  such  a  policy."2 

The  English  historian,  Henderson,  says:  "So 
far  Virginia  had  given  no  overt  sign  of  sympathy 
with  the  Revolution.  But  she  was  now  called  upon 

iRhodes  History  United  States,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  386. 

2Virginia's  Attitude  Toward  Slavery  and  Secession,  pp.  282. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      97 

to  furnish  her  quota  of  regiments  for  the  Federal 
Army.  To  have  acceded  to  the  demand  would 
have  been  to  abjure  the  most  cherished  principles 
of  her  political  existence.  Neutrality  was  im 
possible.  She  was  bound  to  furnish  her  tale  of 
troops  and  thus  belie  her  principles,  or  secede  at 
once  and  reject,  with  a  clean  conscience,  the  Pres 
ident's  mandate.  If  the  morality  of  secession  may 
be  questioned,  if  South  Carolina  acted  with  undue 
haste  and  without  sufficient  provocation,  it  can 
hardly  be  denied  that  the  action  of  Virginia  was 
not  only  fully  justified,  but  beyond  suspicion."1 

In  the  Convention  which  framed  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States  a  motion  was  made  to 
give  the  Federal  Government  power  to  use  mili 
tary  force  against  a  non-complying  State,  but  it 
was  unanimously  voted  down  and  rejected  and  no 
such  power  was  ever  given  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  by  the  Constitution.  Lincoln,  himself  a  law 
yer,  well  knew  that  fact,  and  he  sought  an  excuse 
for  his  unconstitutional  action  by  raising  an  army 
to  subjugate  the  South  in  the  old  "Act  of  1795," 
referred  to  by  Governor  Letcher  in  his  refusal  to 
obey  the  mandate  of  the  President's  call  for  troops. 
That  act  was  passed  by  Congress  to  enable  the 
Federal  Government  to  assist  the  State  of  Penn 
sylvania  in  putting  down  what  is  known  as  the 
"Whiskey  Rebellion"  which  was  an  insurrection 
against  the  authority  of  the  State  of  Pennsyl 
vania. 

President  Buchanan  defined  the  import  and  au 
thority  of  that  old  act  as  follows :  "Under  the  act 

Henderson's  "Stonewall  Jackson." 


98  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

of  1795,  the  President  is  precluded  from  acting 
even  upon  his  own  personal  and  absolute  knowl 
edge  of  the  existence  of  such  an  insurrection.  Be 
fore  he  can  call  forth  the  militia  for  its  suppres 
sion  he  must  be  first  applied  to  for  this  purpose 
by  the  appropriate  State  Authorities  in  the  man 
ner  prescribed  by  the  Constitution."1 

The  raising  of  any  army  for  such  a  purpose  on 
such  a  flimsy  pretext  was  not  only  illegal  and  un 
constitutional  but,  in  the  eyes  of  all  enlightened 
nations,  supremely  ridiculous. 

But  in  the  gleeful  language  of  one  of  his  grovel 
ing  and  obsequious  admirers,  "Abraham  Lincoln 
kicked  the  Constitution  into  the  cellar  of  the  Cap 
itol  and  there  it  remained  innocuous  until  the  war 
ended." 

Compare  the  high-handed  and  unauthorized 
crime  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  raising  an  army 
of  seventy-five  thousand  men  to  resist  and 
suppress  the  lawful  acts  of  the  Legislatures 
and  Conventions  of  the  people  of  sovereign 
and  independent  States  with  his  previous  opinions 
and  public  utterances.  According  to  the  Congres 
sional  Globe,  first  session  Thirtieth  Congress,  p. 
94,  Lincoln  said  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of 
Representatives:  "Any  people,  anywhere,  being 
inclined  and  having  the  power,  have  the  right  to 
rise  up  and  shake  off  the  existing  government,  and 
to  form  one  that  suits  them  better.  This  is  a  most 
valuable  and  most  sacred  right,  a  right  which  we 
hope  and  believe  is  to  liberate  the  world.  Nor  is 
this  right  confined  to  cases  in  which  the  people 

*Life  of  Buchanan. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES      99 

of  an  existing  government  may  choose  to  exercise 
it.  Any  portion  of  such  people  may  revolutionize, 
putting  down  a  minority  intermingling  or  near 
them  who  oppose  their  movements."-  "The  South's 
secession  fulfilled  every  requirement  laid  down  by 
Lincoln.  The  South  had  the  right  and  she  ex 
ercised  it  with  dignity  and  decency.  She  did  not 
rise  up  and  shake  off  the  Union  Government  in  a 
turbulent  manner,  she  quietly  withdrew,"1  and 
only  asked  to  be  let  alone. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  the  whole  course  of 
the  Lincoln  Administration  for  the  first  two 
months  of  its  existence  was  intended  to  hoodwink 
and  deceive  the  South  and  the  conservative  people 
of  the  North  as  to  its  real  intentions ;  and  it  was 
only  after  Lincoln  and  Seward  were  ready  to 
strike  the  first  blow  that  they  raised  the  cry 
against  the  South  of  "Rebel  and  Traitor." 

The  monstrous,  oft  repeated  and  as  oft  refuted 
charge  that  the  South  made  war  upon  the  United 
States  Government  with  intent  and  purpose  to 
destroy  the  Union  and  perpetuate  slavery  is  too 
stale  and,  withal,  too  foolish  and  absurd  to  merit 
serious  reply  or  consideration,  save  for  the  pur 
pose  of  keeping  constantly  before  the  eyes  and 
minds  of  our  children  and  children's  children 
throughout  succeeding  generations  the  everlasting 
truths  and  undeniable  facts  of  the  real  causes  and 
outrages  that  forced  their  fathers  and  grand 
fathers,  reluctantly  and  sorrowfully,  in  pure  and 
patriotic  defence  of  the  God-given  and  inalienable 

iFacts  and  Falsehoods,  p.   149. 

Congressional   Globe,  Thirtieth  Congress,  p.  94. 


100  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

rights  bequeathed  to  them  by  their  Revolutionary 
ancestors,  to  submit  their  cause  to  the  arbitra 
ment  of  the  sword.  War  on  the  South  was  morally 
begun  by  the  Abolitionists  of  New  England  forty 
years  before  the  first  gun  was  fired;  it  was  fully 
organized  by  the  formation  of  the  Black  Republi 
can  Party  in  1854 ;  the  first  gun  was  fired  by  John 
Brown,  the  creature  of  that  party,  at  Harper's 
Ferry  in  1859;  it  was  formally  opened  and  de 
clared  by  the  sailing  of  the  great  war  fleet  against 
Charleston  in  1861;  and  the  first  gun  at  Sumter 
was  only  the  first  gun  of  self-defense. 

"South  Carolina  had  ceded  the  land  on  which 
Fort  Sumter  had  been  built  to  the  General  Gov 
ernment  for  the  protection  of  the  harbor  of  Char 
leston,  and  now  that  the  fort  was  to  be  used,  not 
for  its  original  purpose  but  for  the  destruction 
of  her  beautiful  city,  the  State,  having  lawfully 
and  rightfully  seceded  from  the  Union,  had  the 
clear  right  to  demand  it  back;  and  the  Confed 
erate  authorities  acted  with  rare  patience  and  for 
bearance  when  they  waited  so  long  in  the  vain 
hope  of  getting  peaceable  possession  of  their  own. 
But  when  they  received  information  that  a  power 
ful  armament  was  about  to  enter  the  harbor  to 
reinforce  Fort  Sumter  and  make  it  impregnable 
to  their  assaults  they,  in  opening  fire  upon  the 
fort,  "acted  as  strictly  in  self-defence  as  the  man 
who  uses  whatever  force  may  be  necessary  to  dis 
arm  an  assassin  about  to  strike  him  instead  of 
waiting  to  receive  the  fatal  blow."1 


ial  Volume  of  Jefferson  Davis,  p.  308. 


CHAPTER  X. 


CONCLUSION. 

Let  us  thus  keep  the  undeniable  facts  and  the 
undying  truths  of  history  constantly  and  always 
before  our  children  and  before  the  world,  breath 
ing  the  devout  and  perpetual  prayer, 

"Lord  God  of  Hosts,  defend  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget,  lest  we  forget." 

And  with  those  everlasting  truths  kept  constantly 
before  their  eyes  and  instilled  from  infancy  into 
their  minds  and  hearts,  let  them  be  taught  fear 
lessly  and  proudly  to  proclaim,  always  and  every 
where,  that  their  fathers  need  no  defense  and 
offer  no  apology  for  the  course  they  pursued  in 
the  War  between  the  States,  steadfast  in  the 
eternal  right  and  justice  of  their  cause  and  as 
sured  that — 

No  purer  sword  led  braver  band, 
Nor  braver  bled  for  a  brighter  land, 
Nor  brighter  land  had  a  cause  so  grand 
Nor  cause  a  chief  like  Lee. 

This  sentiment  was  fittingly  and  aptly  expressed 
by  an  incident  at  the  Academy  of  Music  in  Rich 
mond  in  which  the  late  Hon.  A.  M.  Keiley  was  the 
leading  figure.  Mayor  Keiley,  as  he  was  famil 
iarly  and  affectionately  known  in  Richmond,  had 
been  appointed  by  President  Cleveland  a  Judge  of 
the  International  Court  and,  in  the  discharge  of 


102  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

his  duties,  was  resident  in  Alexandria,  Egypt,  but 
was  now  on  a  visit  to  his  old  home  in  his  native 
city.  In  presenting  Judge  Keiley  to  an  audience 
of  his  friends  and  admirers  who  had  packed  the 
Academy  to  extend  him  a  fitting  welcome,  the 
Chairman,  among  other  compliments,  spoke  of 
him  as  "a  Confederate  soldier  who  gallantly 
fought  for  what  he  believed  to  be  right."  In  com 
mencing  his  address  the  distinguished  speaker 
said:  "I  thank  my  friend  for  the  many  kind 
things  he  has  said  about  me,  but  I  must  reject  and 
deny  one  of  his  intended  complimentary  asser 
tions.  I  did  not  fight  for  what  I  believed  to  be 
right ;  I  fought  for  what  I  knew  was  right ;"  and 
the  thundering  applause  which  drowne.d  his  fur 
ther  utterance  showed  how  thoroughly  in  sym 
pathy  with  the  sentiment  his  audience  was. 

So  let  it  be  proclaimed  and  maintained  in  the 
face  of  all  opposition  and  dispute  that  we  went 
to  war  and  fought,  as  never  people  did,  for  a 
cause  we  knew  and  still  know  was  right  and  just, 
and  laid  down  our  arms  only  when  "forced  to 
yield  to  overwhelming  numbers  and  resources." 

The  sacred  and  urgent  duty  that  rests  upon  us 
to  record  and  treasure  up  and  transmit  to  our 
children  and,  through  them  to  the  remotest  gen 
erations  of  our  posterity,  the  whole  Truth,  un 
biased  and  unperverted  in  its  entirety,  of  the 
noble  fight  their  fathers  made  for  liberty  and  Con 
stitutional  rights  was  earnestly  set  forth  by 
Lieutenant  Governor  J.  Taylor  Ellyson  in  a  speech 
before  the  United  Confederate  Veterans  during 
the  funeral  obsequies  of  President  Jefferson  Davis 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES     103 

at  New  Orleans  in  1889.  Mr.  Ellyson  said: 
"There  is  no  danger  that  we  who  fought  under 
the  Stars  and  Bars,  shall  ever  forget  the  memories 
of  four  stormy  years  or  prove  false  to  the  gener 
ous  motives  that  then  animated  our  lives;  but 
there  is  danger,  and  real  danger,  that  our  children 
may  be  taught  that  the  cause  for  which  we  fought 
was  treason  and  we  but  traitors.  From  such  a 
fate  may  a  kind  Providence  spare  us !  Then  let  us 
see  that  histories  are  written  which  shall  contain 
the  true  story  of  Southern  patriotism  and  valor, 
and  which  teach  our  children  that  the  soldiers  of 
the  Southern  Confederacy  were  not  rebels,  but 
were  Americans  who  loved  Constitutional  liberty 
as  something  dearer  than  life  itself.  Let  us  be 
certain  that  our  children  know  that  the  War  be 
tween  the  States  was  not  a  contest  for  the  preser 
vation  of  slavery,  as  some  would  have  them  be 
lieve,  but  that  it  was  a  great  struggle  for  the 
maintenance  of  Constitutional  rights,  and  that  the 
men  who  fought — 

Were  warriors  tried  and  true, 

Who  bore  the  Flag  of  a  nation's  trust ; 

And  fell  in  a  cause  though  lost,  still  just, 

And  died  for  me  and  you."1 
Nor  was  the  cause  for  which  we  fought  entirely 
"lost," 

"Truth  crushed  to  earth  will  rise  again." 
Though  we  failed  to  establish  permanently  an  in 
dependent  government,  yet,  the  eternal  truth  and 
right  and  justice  of  our  cause  still  lives;  and  that 
it  is  steadily  gaining  ground  in  the  minds  and 

iMemorial  Volume  of  Jefferson  Davis,  p.   584. 


104  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

convictions  of  calm,  dispassionate  thinkers  every 
where  is  shown  by  the  fact,  among  many  other 
instances,  that  one  of  the  most  distinguished  and 
forceful  writers  of  Massachusetts  said  in  a  recent 
publication,  treating  of  the  Confederacy  and  its 
people:  "Such  character  and  achievement  were 
not  all  in  vain ;  though  the  Confederacy  fell  as  an 
actual,  physical  Power,  it  lives  eternally  in  its 
just  cause — the  cause  of  Constitutional  liberty." 
And  that  the  devotion  and  fortitude  of  our 
people,  the  enlightened  and  liberty-loving  prin 
ciples  upon  which  our  Government  was  founded 
and  its  administration  conceived  and  executed,  the 
high  plane  of  civilized  and  humane  warfare  on 
which  our  campaigns  were  conducted  and  the  un 
surpassed  courage  and  valor  with  which  our  bat 
tles  were  fought  are  fully  known  and  recognized 
in  foreign  lands  is  beautifully  exemplified  in  the 
following  touching  incident.  Professor  Philip 
Stanley  Worsley,  of  Oxford  University,  England, 
sent  a  copy  of  his  translation  of  Homer's  Iliad  to 
General  Robert  E.  Lee,  who  was  then  President 
of  Washington  College.  On  the  fly  leaf  the  author 
addressed  General  Lee  as  "The  most  stainless  of 
living  commanders  and  except  in  fortune,  the 
greatest,"  and  adds  an  original  poem  in  which 
he  says: 

"Thy  Troy  is  fallen,  thy  dear  land 
Is  marred  beneath  the  spoiler's  heel — 

****** 

Ah,  realm  of  tombs !  But  let  her  bear 
This  blazon  to  the  last  of  times : 
No  nation  rose  so  white  and  fair, 
Nor  fell  so  pure  of  crimes." 


Bibliography 

Books,  Pamphlets,  Papers  and  Manuscripts 
consulted  and  quoted  in  the  preparation  of  the 
foregoing  pages : 

The  Olive  Branch,  Matthew  Gary. 

The  Pelham  Papers,  Hartford  Courant,  1795. 

Boston  Gazette,  1813. 

American  Commonwealths,  Scudder. 

Epochs  in  American  History,  Prof.  Hart. 

History  of  the  Hartford  Convention,  Dwight. 

Writings  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  Ford. 

Select  Documents,  McDonald. 

Journal  of  Virginia  House  of  Burgesses. 

History  of  the  United  States,  Bancroft. 

Critical  Period  of  American  History,  Fisk. 

History  of  the  great  Civil  War,  Horton. 

William  Lloyd  Garrison,  His  Children. 

Wendell  Phillips,  Speeches,  Lectures  and  Let 
ters. 

Congressional  Globe. 

The  Men  Who  Saved  the  Union,  Donn  Piatt. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  Speeches,  Lectures  and 
Correspondence. 

Joshua  Giddings,  Speeches  and  Letters. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Sermons,  Lectures  and 
Correspondence. 

Horace  Greeley,  New  York  Tribune. 


106  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

J.  L.  M.  Curry,  Speeches  in  United  States  Con 
gress. 

John  Quincy  Adams,  Speeches  and  Letters. 

Edward  Everett,  Speeches  and  Letters. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  Messages,  Speeches  and  Dip 
lomatic  Correspondence. 

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Life  and  Public  Service  of  Salmon  P.  Chase, 
Schukers. 

Letters  and  State  Papers  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
Nicolay  and  Hay. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  a  History,  Nicolay  and  Hay. 

Slavery  and  Abolition,  Prof.  Hart. 

History  of  the  United  States,  Rhodes. 

Journal  of  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates, 
Extra  Session,  1861. 

Proceedings  of  the  Peace  Convention,  1861, 
Crittenden. 

Lee  at  Appomattox,  Charles  Francis  Adams. 
Journal  of  the  Virginia  Convention,  1861. 
Life  of  James  Buchanan,  Curtis. 
Southern  Historical  Society  Papers. 
The  War  Between  the  States,  A.  H.  Stephens. 
The  Great  American  Conflict,  Greeley. 
Virginia's  Attitude  Towards  Slavery  and  Seces 
sion,  Munford. 

Stonewall  Jackson,  Henderson. 
Facts  and  Falsehoods,  Edmonds. 
Memorial  Volume  of  Jefferson  Davis,  Jones. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES     107 

Richmond,  Dispatch. 

Annals  of  Congress. 

History  of  Slavery  in  Virginia,  Ballagh. 

Defence  of  Virginia,  Dabney. 

Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Confederate  Government, 
Jefferson  Davis. 

The  Impending  Crisis  in  the  South,  H.  R. 
Helper. 

Life  of  Patrick  Henry,  Wirt. 

School  History  of  the  United  States,  Jones. 

Writings  of  Washington,  John  Marshall. 

Life  of  William  H.  Seward,  Lothrop. 

The  Confederate  Cause  and  Conduct  of  the  War, 
McGuire  and  Christian. 

Wendell  Phillips,  the  Agitator,  Martyn. 

Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  Rich 
ardson. 

Life  and  Times  of  James  Madison,  Rives. 
The  Impending  Crisis  Dissected,  Wolfe. 
The  Real  Lincoln,  Chas.  L.  C.  Miner. 
The  Logic  of  History,  Carpenter. 
Disunion  and  Reunion,  Woodrow  Wilson. 
Life  of  Wm.  H.  Seward,  Frederick  Bancroft. 

Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  W.  H.  Herndon,  1886 
(Suppressed). 

The  True  Story  of  A  Great  Life,  Herndon  & 
Weiks,  1880. 

Nullification  and  Secession,  E.  P.  Powell. 


108  CAUSES  THAT  LED  TO 

The  Lemars  (Iowa)  Sentinel. 
Recollections  of  Lincoln,  Ward  Hill  Lamon. 
Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Holland. 
Sherman's  Memoirs,  W.  T.  Sherman. 
Ohio  in  The  War,  Whitelaw  Reid. 
Black's  Essays,  Jeremiah  S.  Black. 
Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  Tarbell. 
Beacon  Lights  of  History,  Lord. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  Noah  Brooks  in  Heroes  of 
the  Nation. 

History  of  Slavery,  Blake. 

Democracy  in  the  South  Before  the  War,  Dyer. 

History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States, 
McMasters. 

Defense  of  The  South,  Richardson. 


INDEX. 


Abolition    Society    .....................................................  37 

Abolitionism  ............................................................  °( 

Abolitionism,  its  origin  ..............................................  •>* 

Abolitionists  change   front    .........................................  »j» 

Abolitionism  spreads   .................................................  £? 

Abolitionism,   methods  of   ...........................................  39 

Abolition  paper   ........................................................  j>7 

Abolitionist's    Propaganda    ..........................................  &( 

Act  of   1795   invoked  ...................................................  97 

Adams'    Administration     .........................................  1».  19 

Adams,    Chas.    Francis   quoted  ...................................  76,77 

Adams,    John    ..........................................................  *« 

Adams,   Candidate   of   Federalists  ..................................  17 

Adams,   Minister  to  England  ........................................  1' 

Adams,   John  Quincy  ..................................................  2< 

Adams,    John   Quincy   quoted  ......................................  ••  p! 

Alien  and  Sedition  Laws  ..........................................  18,  2; 

Ames,    Fisher    ..........................................................  I 

Anderson,   Major    ......................................................  9 

Bancroft  quoted   .......................................................  3! 

Banks,    Gov.    quoted    ..................................................  47 

Beauregard,    General    ................................................  *< 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward   ................................................  45 

Black  Republican  Party  ......................................  45,   47,  49 

Bleeding   Kansas    ......................................................  5" 

Bloodletting    prescribed    .............................................   < 

Books    unfair    ..........................................................  10 

Boston  Gazette  threatens  Madison  ...............................  2! 

Boston  petitions  Adams   .............................................  19 

Brown,  John   .......................................................  45,  100 

Brown,  John,  Capture,  trial  and  execution  ......................  51 

Brown,   John,    Raid    ...................................................  51 

Buchanan,    President    .............................................  80,  97 

Buchanan,    President,    quoted    ......................................  86 

Burgesses  of  Virginia   ...............................................  33 

Byrd,  Col.  William,  quoted   .........................................  11 

C 
Calhoun,  John  C  .......................................................  40 

Cameron,    Senator,    quoted    ..........................................  48 

Campbell.   Judge,  quoted   ............................................  90 

Gary,  Matthew,  quoted   ...........................................  21,  22 

Causes    traced    .........................................................  11 

Cavaliers    ................................................................  12 

Chase,  Bishop   ..........................................................  30 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  quoted   ...........................................  59 

Chicago  Platform    ....................................  ................  57 

Commissioners  from  New  England  ................................  32 

Commissioners  from  Virginia  ......................................  70 

Committee   from   Virginia    ..........................................  88 

Committee  on  Federal  Relations   ..................................  85 

Confederate   Commissioners    ........................................  89 

Confederate  Government  seeks  peace  ............................  88 

Conspiracy  with   British  Government   ............................  26 

Convention    of    1854    ..................................................  45 

Constitutional    Convention    ..........................................  15 

Constitution  burned  by  Garrison   ..................................  39 

Constitution  denounced   ..............................................  40 

Cotton  States   .......................................................  60,  69 

Curry,  J.  L.  M  .........................................................  58 


D  Page 

Daniel,  John  W.,  quoted 32 

Daughters  of  the  Confederacy  i 

Davis,   Jefferson   64 

Davis,  Jefferson  quoted   41,6' 

Declaration  of  Independence  denounced 28 

Declaration  of  Independence  invoked 57 

Declaration  of  Independence  referred  to  60 

Democratic   Party    13,  17,  25,  33,  43 

Disunion,   origin   of    4: 

Disunion    party    33 

Divine  Right   19 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  quoted  80 

Dwight,  Rev.  Dr.,  quoted  28 

• 

Efforts  to  save  Union  73 

Ellis,  Governor  N.  C.,  quoted   95 

Ellyson,  Governor  J.  Taylor  102 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  quoted  53 

P 

Federal   Constitution   22 

Federalist    party    16,  17,  19 

Federalists  in  War  of  1812 27 

Flag  fired   on    93 

Flag   insulted    82 

Fort  Sumter  81,  90,  92  100 

Fremont,  John  C.,  nominated   45 

O 

Garison,  William  Lloyd   39 

Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation  37 

Grant,    General    17 

Greely,   Horace   52,60 

H 

Hall  of  Fame   52 

Hamilton,  Alex   13,  16 

Hamilton,  a  Monarchist   14 

Hamiltonian   Party    15 

Hart,  Prof.,  of  Harvard   67 

Hartford    Courant    29 

Hartford  Convention   29,   30,   31,  32 

Helper  Book  49 

Henderson,    historian,   quoted    96 

Henry,   British   conspirator   32 

Hill,   A.   P 66 

Histories,    partisan    9 

Hopkins,    Erastus,     quoted 51 

J 

Jackson,  Governor,  Mississippi   96 

Janney,    John    78 

Jefferson,   Thomas   13,  19,  25,  33 

Jefferson,   Thomas,   denounced   20 

Jeffersonian     party     20 

Jefferson's    platform    20 

Jefferson    quoted    21,  31,  59,  66 

X 

Kansas    45 

Keilley,  Hon.  A.  M 101-2 

Key    West    85 

King  of  England  petitioned  34 

I, 

Langdon,   John,   quoted   21 

Lee,    Fitzhugh    66 

Lee,  Robert  E 62,  104 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  quoted  65,  78 


Page 

Letcher,  Governor  of  Virginia   JJ 

Lincoln's   Administration    -87 

Lincoln's    advisers     86~| 

Lincoln's   Cabinet   j[l 

Lincoln   elected    » 

Lincoln's  inaugural  address   °; 

Lincoln    inaugurated    jj* 

Lincoln's   Message    •••  °j| 

Lincoln    nominated    1      o< 

Lincoln   quoted    60»  9° 

Louisiana   admitted    &S 

Lyon,    Matthew,  imprisoned   1' 

Madison    19,    26,    28,    25,  33 

Martin,   Luther,  quoted   1; 

Mason    25 

Massachusets   Resolutions    29 

Maury,  Commodore   6< 

Missouri  Compromise   37 

Monarchial    Government 13,  17,  20 

Monroe    ••  26 

Munford,    B.    B 6,  96 

McGoffin,   Governor  of  Kentucky    91 

McGuire,  Dr.  Hunter  67 

Negro   Equality   3! 

New  England,   hotbed  of  secession   3, 

New   England's  insincerity 35 

New  England  and  Kansas   46 

New  England,   perpetuates  slave  trade   3 

New  England,  seeks  to  overthrow  Union    26,  2' 

New  England  settled   11 

New  England  States  Convention  3< 

New  England  threatens  to  secede   32 

New  York  Tribune   60,  82 

Northern   Historian  quoted    63 

Northern    Confederacy    22,  21 

Northern  Leaders,   reference   to   53 

Northern   propaganda   61 

Olive  Branch,  The  21 

Overt  Act   64 

Partnership    property    62 

Patriotism   invoked   84 

Peace   Conference    71 

Peace  Conference,  Failure  of   74 

Pelham    Papers    22,  29 

Phillips,   Wendell    40 

Phillips,  Wendell,  denounces  Lincoln   81 

Political  war  on  South  23 

Preston,    William    B 88 

Public    property     61 

Puritans   12 

Q 
Quincy,   Josiah    29,  58 

B 

Randolph,   Geo.    W 88 

Rawls,  Judge  William,  quoted  69 

Rebel     63 

Reconstruction    10,  45 

Relief  Squadron  91 


Page 

Republic  denounced   28 

Republican    Party     16,  47 

Rhodes,  historian,  quoted  68,  71 

S 

Seceding  States  seek  adjustment   62 

Secession  Convention    83 

Secession,  right  of  unquestioned   29 

Seward,   W.    H 58,  84 

Seward,   duplicity   of    81 

Seward   described    43 

Seward  plays  false  88 

Seward,  policy  of   84 

Seward    quoted    76 

Slavery   abandoned    84 

-Slavery  made  issue  33 

^Slaveholders   denounced    37 

Slaves,   care  of   39 

Slave  trade  in  Constitutional  Convention  35 

South  Carolina  Seceded  64 

Southern  Leaders   ; 37 

Southern  Statesmen  for  Union   46 

South  fought  for  principle   99 

South  loved  Union  64 

South  misrepresented   38 

South   opposed   slavery    33 

Spotswood,   Alexander,   quoted   12 

States   withdraw    61 

Stuart,   J.  E.   B 66 

Stonewall  Jackson    66 

Strong,  Caleb,  Governor  of  Massachusetts   27-8 

Stuart,  A.  H.  H 88 

Summers,  Geo.  W.,  quoted  72 

Sumter,   General,  assaulted   18 

T 

Traitor    63 

Tyler,    John    71 

U 

Uncle    Tom's    Cabin    39 

Union   denounced    28,  39 

Union  distasteful  to  North   54 

V 

Virginia   abused    28 

Virginia  Convention    86 

Virginia   Election    77 

Virginia   General   Assembly    75 

Virginia  and  Kentucky  Resolutions   19 

Virginia  love  of  Union   68 

Virginia  refuses  Lincoln's  Call 28 

Virginia   Resolutions    70 

Virginia   secedes    95 

Virginia  settled    12 

Virginia  settlers  described  13 

Virginia  State  Convention    76 

W 

War  of  1812  27 

Washington     33 

Washington,  influence  of  16 

Washington  writes  Hamilton   15 

Whig   Party    43 

Whiskey   Rebellion    97 

Withdrawal  from  Union  threatened  31 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWE1 

LOAN  DEPT. 


General  Library     . 
University  of  California 
Berkeley 


LD  2lA-40m-ll,'63 
(E1602slO)476B 


YB  37602 


:.  * .  •«. 


